I’ve Great Working Relationship With My Boss — Deputy Minister

Embattled Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports, Pius Enam Hadzide, has refuted speculations of a seeming tension between him and his boss, Isaac Kwame Asiamah.

Responding to allegations on an alleged bad working relationship between himself and the sports minister, the suspended deputy minister said on Metro TV's Good Morning Ghana show on Friday that he was astonished by the allegations because he had an excellent working relationship with Mr Asiamah, the NPP Member of Parliament for Atwima Mponua Constituency.

But Hadzide said the claim of alleged friction between him and his boss was just a figment of people’s imagination because all was well between him and Asiamah.

“I have heard it [rumours of a bad working relationship with the minister] but I am also surprised; I am not aware of any basis for anybody to say that. We have a great working relationship,” Mr Hadizide said in response to a question about an alleged friction between him and his boss.

The deputy minister was reported to be at loggerheads with his boss long before he was implicated in a visa racketeering scandal that rocked Ghana's participation in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, and led to the deportation in April of more than 50 Ghanaians whose credentials as accredited journalists were doubted by the Australian immigration authorities.

The scandal led to the suspension by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the Deputy Sports Minister, as well as the Board chairman of the National Sports Authority, Mr Kwadwo Baah Agyemang and Mr Robert Sarfo Mensah, Director General of the sports authority.