Journalist Assaulted In An Attempt To Gag Exposure Of Expired Savanna, Hunters Bear

Isaac Mensah, Brands Manager in charge of Liquors at Distell Ghana Limited assulted a journalist with Daily Express, Mr. Raphael Apetorgbor

The drinking public in Ghana has been beset with a dangerous deadfall as a popular liquor brand manufacturer appears to have irresponsibly glossed over a duty to mop expired products off the market.

Lapsed bottles of Hunters Dry and Savanna Dry cider have been encountered in liquor bars in the national Capital Accra, with one unfortunate patron, a journalist, suffering diarrhea after consumption.

In a double-whammy however, the same journalist who apparently suffered food poisoning after consuming the expired products has also been assaulted by a staff of the company in a bid to gag investigations and exposal.

Mr. Raphael Apetorgbor, a senior reporter with the Daily Express, suffered serious stomach upset on Saturday after he had consumed a bottle of Hunters Dry at a pub in Akweteyman, a suburb of Accra.

Before the stomach upset, Mr. Apetorgbor had been moved by unusualness in the taste of a bottle of the Cider that he had bought, to check out the expiry date of the drink that he was consuming.

It was then that he found out that even though it was the 12^th of August, the drink he was consuming had expired in July 2017.

In a confrontation with the drinking bar operator (name withheld) over the issue Mr. Apetorgbor was told that the drinks had been furnished to the bar by a distributor of Distell Ghana ltd apparently in a rush-sale to cut losses.

“According to the bar operator, he realized the drinks (brought to him) were expired but was however advised by the distributor to be cautious when selling them out to the public for consumption because it was a dangerous thing to do,” Mr. Apetorgbor said.

This was a spark on investigative instinct and so the Daily Express senior journalist set about probing the issue, which led him to another retailer who has several cartons of the beverages in stock shop.

“He told the Daily Express that the drinks were delivered to him and stated same as said by the first bar operator.

“He further explained that the distributor told him that, the company Distell Group Limited will run at a loss if the drinks were not sold quickly,” Mr. Apetorgbor revealed.

At this stage, Mr. Raphael Apetorgbor realized that he might be dealing with a corporate rogue, and so invited other journalists, including this reporter from The Republic, to join in the investigation.

The enquiries led to a contact with Mr. Gregory Greg Pitt, Country Manager for Distell Ghana Limited.

In reaction, Mr. Pitt said he was not aware of any expired products on the market as he explained that the company recently recalled some products that were almost becoming dangerous to human health after expiry.

He said the recall was in line with company policy: “If the drinks are about to expire, we pull it back from the market. It must be an exception and we will address it because we know of the consequences.”

However, he refused to confirm or deny whether the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) had been part of the recall process involving the expired products he referenced, as is required by law; neither did he confirm or deny that the recalled beverages had been destroyed as specified by law.

On his part, Mr. Jude Matti, Marketing Manager at Distell Group Limited, could not confirm or deny the allegation that Distell has flooded the Ghanaian market with expired products in a bid to cut losses.

“We have communicated to all distributors that if the drinks are in the process of getting expired, they should let us know so that we can collect them” he had said on phone.

Mr. Matti had then promised to return with feedback but calls that were later placed to his phones were not answered.

Rather, a man who called himself Ali Dawud, reached the journalists investigating the issue on phone and proposed to meet up to address the issue.

At an open rendezvous in Lapaz, a suburb of Accra, this Dawud guy demanded to be shown the bar where the expired products are on sale

As guilty manufacturers tend to rush in to clear traces of expired products before the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) can go in and verify, the journalists investigating the matter refused to be persuaded to show the bar in question to Dawud.

This led to Ali Dawud publicly manhandling Mr. Apetorgbor at Lapaz, shoving and punching his chest as part of the assault. He also accused all the journalists investigating the matter as criminal fraudsters and Sakawa boys.

It had to take this reporter to physically intervene to ensure that Mr. Apetorgbor was not hurt to dangerous proportions by the physically attacking Ali Dawud guy from Ditsell Ghana Limited.

Raphael Apetorgbor has since reported the incident to the Tesano Police who have started an investigation.

Investigations by The Republic on Ali Dawud has since also revealed that the man had been impersonating when he introduced himself as such.

“Ali Dawud” as it turned out, is actually Isaac Mensah, Brands Manager in charge of Liquors at Distell Ghana Limited, local manufacturers of Hunters Dry and Savanna Dry, who are alleged to have flooded the market with expired products to cut losses.

Distell Ghana Limited is a partnership between Finatrade Group of Ghana and Distell Group of South Africa. In June 2014, Distell Ghana Limited commissioned a Ghc16million bottling plant in Ghana to locally produce the beverages that used to be imported from abroad.

It is just three years into the commissioning of that plant that expired products are wandering on the market while an attempt to gag media investigations has led to a Brands Manager doing an imposture to find out a bar outlet so the company, apparently, can quickly go and clean up its mess ahead of FDA investigations.

In an attempt to gag investigations by journalists, Isaac Mensah, Brands Manager in charge of Liquors, who did an imposture as “Ali Dawud,” had used every dirty trick in the book to tease out information about the location of the bar where expired products from Distell were on sale, before assaulting journalists both verbally and physically after his monkey tactics had failed.

Public Relations Officer of the FDA, Mr. James Lartey, has since affirmed that it is against the laws of the country to sell expired products.

Mr. Lartey has since promised that the FDA will conduct investigation into the issue.