Daily Guide’s political reporter, Halifax Ansah-Addo, became the latest target of a smear campaign yesterday, Monday, September 5, when he went to the office of a deputy Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Hannah Louisa Bissiw, to follow up on a story in which she was alleged to have consulted a spiritualist to use ‘juju’ to achieve her dream of heading the ministry.

In less than 30 minutes after leaving Hannah Bissiw’s office, a number of broadcast journalists including Kojo Preko Dankwa of Asempa FM and Adom FM, as well as Fiifi Boafo of Oman FM called to ask why the reporter had taken a bribe of GH¢1,000 from Hannah Bissiw so as to kill a story.

According to Fiifi Boafo and Kojo Preko, they had received breaking news from Hannah Bissiw’s office that Halifax had just left the place, threatening to publish the said juju story if he was not given an amount of GH¢3,000 to “kill the story”.

The two broadcast journalists said they had the information from Hannah Bissiw’s office and the informant alleged that the deputy Minister’s secretary, a lady called Joyce, bargained the bribe money down to GH¢2,000, of which Halifax was given a first part payment of GH¢1,000. They said the entire discussion was secretly recorded and the arrangement was for Halifax to have gone for the remaining money the next day if the story did not appear in the paper.

Interestingly, Halifax really went to Hannah Bissiw’s office yesterday morning but did not meet her and spoke with the secretary.

The episode was similar to what happened to Ebo Bruce-Quansah, another Daily Guide reporter, who was recently reported by the Ghana PALAVER newspaper, until recently edited by Ebo’s father, Jojo Bruce-Quansah, to have defrauded a pastor and a radio station at Bolgatanga in the Upper East region to the tune of GH¢1,500.

Both the pastor and the radio station have since issued statements to deny the Ghana Palaver publication and exonerated Ebo Bruce-Quansah.

Encounter At Hannah Bissiw’s Office There were two female secretaries at Hannah Bissau’s reception. One of them gave her name as Joyce and explained that the deputy Minister was out of town but would return the next morning.

The journalist then requested to leave a written note for the minister after which he left. About five or so minutes later, Joyce called Halifax on phone; she obviously had the phone number from the note he had left and asked him to return to the Minister’s office for a discussion on the story he was following.

When the journalist returned to Hannah Bissiw’s office, Joyce started begging him to drop the story because the deputy Minister was a staunch Christian who would not meddle in juju.

The journalist explained that dropping the story was beyond his reach because he had been sent by his editor. He insisted that Joyce should give the note to the deputy Minister and assure her that her version would be carried so as to have a balanced story.

There was absolutely no talk about money between the journalist and Joyce and at no point was any call made to Hannah Bissiw while the journalist was in her office. It was when Halifax left Hannah’s office that he had the phone calls from Fiifi and Kojo asking whether it was true he had gone for some money from the deputy Minister so as to drop a story.

Silent Denial By Hannah Bissiw’s Secretary

When Halifax got to his office, he was informed that someone had already called to make a similar allegation of bribery against him. At that point, a phone call was placed to Hannah Bissiw’s office to find out from Joyce where the bribe allegation was coming from.

She denied being responsible for it and asked the journalist to relax and leave it for Jesus Christ to deal with. Joyce blatantly denied that she was the one spreading the false report and promised to discuss the development with the deputy Minister the next day.

Though Daily Guide had followed the ‘juju story’ for some time, it had been difficult to get the deputy Minister’s version as she neither picked her phone when the paper tried reaching her on countless occasions nor even bothered to reply text messages sent to her phone requesting to book an interview with her.