The attention of the Ghana High Commission in the United Kingdom has been drawn to an article posted on the Diasporian News segment of Ghanaweb on Friday, 14 June 2013 by Desmond Murray accusing the Ghana High Commission and the office of President of working with Alex Vine of Chatham House to deliberately deny Ghanaians access to the lecture which H.E. President John Dramani Mahama will be delivering at Chatham House tonight on the topic: Ghana’s Democratic Gains, Economic Change and Regional Influence.

The Ghana High Commission and the Office of the |President deny this allegation and would want to stress that neither the High Commission nor the Office of the President has sought to influence or restrict attendance to this event.

Chatham House, organiser of the event duly advertised the event and requested interested persons to register via an Internet link. As part of the registration protocol, they state that entry to the Africa Programme expert meeting is restricted. They add that places are limited and Chatham House reserves the right to restrict access to any of its meetings without notice or explanation and in the event of late arrivals. Consequently the cut off system is activated when the required number is obtained.

When the High Commission contacted Chatham House for clarification on the allegation, Tighisti Amare, Co-ordinator of Africa programmes said “I have been working on the Africa programme for a long time and it is something that we do whenever events are oversubscribed “. Continuing, she said “I can assure you a lot of Ghanaians are coming to this event and any Ghanaian who comes tonight will see that there has been no diabolical plan to block Ghanaians from attending”.

She explained that “Mr. Alex Vine indeed Heads the International Affairs department at Chatham House and will be chairing tonight’s programme. He has not worked to deny Ghanaians from attending the event” she added.

The Ghana High Commission in London and the Office of the President want to reassure Ghanaians that no one has engaged in any act to deny Ghanaians access to tonight’s event and we urge Ghanaians who have successfully registered to attend the event. We also encourage them to endeavour to arrive early.

Chatham House will stream the event live so that it can reach as many people as possible who are unable to attend. Chatham House has also set up email addresses and twitter so that people who are unable to attend could post their questions to these addresses. We trust that Ghanaians who could not gain entry to the event due to oversubscription would fully utilise these links to make the programme more interactive and truly dialogic.

Issued by the Information and Public Affairs, Ghana High Commission, London Tel: +44 20 7 20 1 5924 Email: information@ghanahighcommissionuk.com