Edward Adeti, an investigative journalist with EIB Network, has donated Gh¢5,000 and a brand-new motorbike which the Bolgatanga Circuit Court handed over to him in a case involving some officials and business partners of the Shaanxi Mining Company Limited.
The journalist was investigating the Judiciary in the Upper East Region when the Shaanxi officials allegedly gave the Gh¢5,000 and a brand-new motorbike to him to influence him to cover up the findings he made against the mining company and a High Court judge in the region, Justice Jacob Boon.
The investigation later caused the resignation of former Upper East Regional Minister and Minister of State at the Presidency, Rockson Ayine Bukari, from government. The investigation also saw several people in the Talensi District, where Shaanxi operates, agitating for the removal of Tongraan, who is the Paramount Chief of Talensi, from his position as the Board Chairman of the Tema Oil Refinery. The Paramount Chief, however, dissociated himself from Rockson Bukari’s comments.
The agitations for his removal were based on the mention of his name by Rockson Bukari whilst the former minister was talking to Adeti in a recorded telephone conversation during the undercover investigation. Adeti had caught Shaanxi officials at the residence of Justice Boon at the time the Shaanxi Mining Company Limited was having a case before the same judge at the Bolgatanga High Court in 2018. The former minister pleaded with the journalist to not expose the mining company’s secret visits to Justice Boon’s residence and lost his job after tapes of his attempt to kill the damning story came public.
Three other people involved in the alleged bribery scandal, Charles Taleog Ndanbon, Maxwell Wooma and Suwaid Abdul-Mumin, subsequently were put before the Bolgatanga Circuit Court. But the court ruled that since Adeti was not a public officer and none of the three accused persons was a public officer, the accused persons should be acquitted and discharged.
The same court also ruled that the Gh¢5,000 and the brand-new motorbike be restored to Adeti since the accused persons claimed they gave the Gh¢5,000 and the brand-new motorbike as “gifts” to Adeti.
The high court however rule that since Mr Edward Adeti “a journalist works for a private company and draws his emoluments from that company and therefore is not a public officer based on the section 7 of the public officers Act, 1962 (Act114) which defines public officer to mean ‘a/a person in the service of the government and b /a person in the service of the local authority’. It will seem therefore that since the complaint is a private journalist who works for a private company, he is not caught by the category of persons anticipated by the provision. That being the case, an important ingredient to be established by the prosecution, i.e. that the person to whom the offer is made must be either be a juror or a public officer, is not made. As a result, the charge is not proved and must therefore fail”.
The court ruling further stated: “Let me just state for the avoidance of doubt that the accused persons never denied giving these items to the journalist. They sought to say it is a gift they made to him. However, that whole enquiry became moot as soon as the fact of the complaint not a being a public officer was introduced. I therefore made no finding as to bribery. The submission of the counsel for the accused persons that their clients should not be called upon to answer the charge therefore glitters with merit and I accordingly sustain same. A1, A2 and A3 are therefore acquitted and discharged on count 1 and A1 acquitted and discharged on count 2. As for the GH₵5,000 .00 and the motorbike since accused person claim they were gifts they made to the complainant, the court hereby order the same be restored to him”.
Narrating his investigation to his colleague pressmen, Adeti said: “In 2018, I conducted an investigation into the justice system in the Upper East Region and whilet the investigation was ongoing a party was involved itself in the wrongdoing decided to give me some items so that I would not publish my investigative findings and I should pinpoint as much as possible so I don’t keep anybody in suspense. Of course, many know the party I’m referring to, Shaanxi Mining Company in the Talensi District. I received these items for evidential purposes because I knew what I was going to do with these items, to write a story about this so that in the end nobody would say there was no attempt to influence me. So, I gave the items to the Bureau of National Investigations and I came out with my publication on Tuesday December 18, 2018, and I indicated that these items should be given to the less privileged or people or entities that would put these items to good use “.
He said the items were in the custodies of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and were later transferred from the BNI to Regional Police Headquarters and there to the Circuit Court in Bolgatanga where he was invited as a witness because it was the republic that decided to prosecute the accused persons. Adeti said the other names were left out of the case for reasons best known to the Republic.
Adeti made it clear that he never took anybody to the Circuit Court. He said he was only invited as a witness as police presented the motorbike and the Gh₵5,000.00 as exhibits.
Following the court ruling, Adeti, who maintained that the cash and the bike were given to him to influence him as captured on tapes, gave out all the items to needy facilities and poor people in the region.
The beneficiaries include a CHPS compound at Guborongo in the Talensi District, the Sheaga Primary School in the Talensi District, fifty poor widows, a baby boy with hydrocephalus at Sirigu in the Kassena Nankana West District and a man, Abubakari Sumaila, who is on dialysis owing to a kidney problem in a zongo community within the Bolgatanga Municipality among others. The motorbike was given to the CHPS compound at Guborongo. More than half of the money was used in producing 22 metal-wood dual desks for the Sheaga Primary School. Fifty widows were provided with a fabric-made protective mask each against COVID-19 from the cash. The rest of the cash went to Abubakari Sumaila (the man on dialysis), Mrs Gladys Ataabo and her ailing baby boy and a starving old man who lives alone at Sirigu in the Kassena-Nankana West District. Authorities from the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Education Service attended the donation event covered by a number of media houses.
Gaspard Ayuureneeya.