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15.04.2019 General News

Stunning Details In Commonwealthm Visa Scandal Report

Justice Tanko Amadu Justice Tanko Amadu
15.04.2019 LISTEN

The committee which probed the visa scandal-tainted Commonwealth Games Gold Coast Australia 2018 has unearthed revealing and stunning anomalies.

The report originating from the probe in a general comment, for instance, stated that the sub-committee chaired by a Justice of the Appeals Court, Justice Tanko Amadu “could not get access to crucial information about the deported persons as requested through the Secretary General of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC).”

The reason for this lapse, according to the Secretary General of the GOC, was due to the “uncooperative attitude of the Australian Border Control and the Ghana Immigration Service.”

Christiana Ashley, General Secretary of the Volleyball Federation, refused to appear before the committee, the report said, adding that “not even the request for her release by the Chief Executive of the NSA where she is employed was positively responded to. The committee did not find the explanation that she is under police investigations as satisfactory.”

Continuing, the report stated that “the committee is of the view that her continuous role in the organisation of sports in Ghana at any level is no longer tenable.”

Having posted on social media 'an exhaustive narrative about the process of accreditation of journalists to the Games, Ken O. Adade, GOC Press Attache, was asked to provide further details by the committee, but instead of doing so, he rather included information “radically inconsistent with the earlier material he posted.”

The committee regarded the conduct of the officer as belittling of its assignment.

It said he misled the committee by describing the entire scandal as a hoax in his response.

The varying positions of the officer, the committee observed, were motivated and influenced by persons hostile to the committee because of their apprehension about the outcome of its assignment.

The committee concluded that “Mr. Ken O. Adade is no longer fit and proper person to remain in office as a press attache or other officer of the GOC or any Sporting Federation”.

The committee was not satisfied with the conduct of George Lamptey, Boxing Federation President, who did not appear to the committee to have shown any interest in identifying the suspected impersonation of a boxer from his federation even before he left Ghana and during the period of his stay in Australia for the games.

His trip to Australia, the committee said, was of no benefit to the Federation and GOC as a whole, adding that “it would have been appropriate for the committee to recommend the refund of all expenses incurred on him except that any such direction will fall outside the remit of the committee.

The committee revealed that visa racketeering through fraudulent representation for either financial gain or nepotic motives is endemic, condoned and facilitated at the highest level of the GOC and NSA.

—Daily Guide

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