Regional News of Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Source: anyenini, s. lardy

Rot at NSS: Former Director grabs five mansions

31ST OCTOBER, 2014 THE EDITOR DAILY GUIDE NEWSPAPER WESTERN PUBLICATIONS LTD ACCRA

Dear Sir,

DEMAND FOR IMMEDIATE RETRACTION AND APOLOGY

We are Solicitors for Mr. Vincent Kuagbenu, former Executive Director of the Ghana National Service Scheme, and have his instructions to demand a retraction of, and an apology for a libelous publication you carried about him and his tenure.

This concerns the publication headed: “Rot at NSS: Former Director grabs five mansions” in the Thursday 30th October 2014 edition of the Daily Guide Newspaper.

The said publication firmly accuses our client of various acts of criminality including corruption, fraud, and infidelity.

Our client wishes to put on record that:

• he has not been a subject of any judicial or administrative inquiry or any such howsoever described, and with outcome(s) touching on the said spurious allegations.

• he is unaware of a purported report forming the gospel of the said defamatory publication made without any effort whatsoever to contact him, at least to give a semblance of compliance with the most basic journalistic standards of fair and balanced reportage.

• he never and has never committed any of the alleged acts, neither was he or has he ever been found guilty of any acts of financial malfeasance, corruption, fraud, or infidelity or any such as claimed in the publication.

• he does not own nor has he ever acquired the said five or more mansions,”flashy, expensive and luxurious cars” and never in the names of friends as a cover up.

• he never fraudulently generated a phoney list of service personnel, supervised or been part of any such acts if any ever occurred and never received allowances meant for same.

• he never took money or colluded with anyone to steal in the name of programs which were never organised, nor did he cause deductions from service persons allowances fraudulently. Your insincere attempt to give an impression of obscuring his identity by not mentioning his name in the malicious publication in a clever attempt to escape a possible suit also fails as ordinary right-thinking readers home and abroad effortlessly identify our client and associate him with the many unproven claims and pouring much scorn on him.

Our client takes a serious view of the publication, and has reason to believe same was done with extreme malice aforethought.

He, nonetheless, offers you a chance to retract the libelous publication and apologise within 7 days from the date above.

Please be advised that our client shall, without further notice to you, seek to repair his hard earned reputation in court, if you fail to publish a retraction and apology with an equal level of the prominence the complained publication was given.

Yours faithfully,

S. LARDY ANYENINI, ESQ. A-PARTNERS @ LAW

CC: • THE EDITOR – GHANAWEB