Opinions of Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Columnist: The Sun

Who’s Defending Rot At Kumasi SIC

A faceless, unnamed member of the Board of directors of SIC Company operating in the shadows, is steering the application of the embattled Kumasi Area Manager of the Company Ms. Lydia Lareba Bawa, in a strange bid to get her the Managing Directors job by the close of Thursday.

Last week, this hideous board member was referred to in an Accra newspaper publication to have sworn that, the Board was angry with THE GHANAIAN SUN’s recent publications on Madam Bawa, even though SIC watchers would not attribute the source beyond her.

But even before SIC shareholders could count the cost of the hell that has happened under Bawa’s thumb, a fresh allegation of her refusal to fly to Zimbabwe for a whole week to attend a conference during the ex-Managing Director Mr. Peter Osei Duah’s tenure, has come up for scrutiny.

On that occasion, instead of showing up for the conference for the whole week for which reason per diem had been doled out to her, Lareba Bawa was present only for a day and on her return to Accra, submitted a full report on the week-long conference which Mr. Osei Duah refused to accept.

When she was told to the face she was not in the position to write the report, she flew into tantrums until she arrogantly verbally roasted the MD. When adverse findings were to be labeled against her, Bawa quickly sought refuge in so-called victimization.

Yet again there is also the issue of the de luxe Rexton four-wheel wagon involved in an accident which was salvaged, even though it was in good shape. After writing off the car, someone offered to buy the car at 16,000 Ghana Cedis and just when it was going to be paid for, Ms. Bawa ordered that payment be frozen.
Today, thanks to tyhe vagaries of the weather the Rexton 4 by 4 which has been parked at the house of the Bolgatanga SIC Branch Manager is a jaded representation of its once excellent self and has completely lost value and may not even go for 4,000 Ghana Cedis.

Also on cue is the catalogue of wrongs committed against Diaby Cocoa Purchasing Company culminating in their cutting off many of their business links with SIC. The story says, sometime last year Diaby Cocoa Purchasing Company put in a claim for two missing pick-ups and in the process of settling the claim for them, Ms. Bawa played the consultant for the Cocoa Comapany in order to extort monies from them and got away with a windfall.

Out of frustration and anger, the Company decided to withdraw majority of its businesses form SIC because of that single act of impropriety by Ms. Bawa.
Also guilty beyond pardon is the friction with Kojack Pharmaceutical Services which led to the Managing director withdrawing the Company’s businesses from the SIC, jsut as the Diaby Cocoa Purchasing Company did.

Next is the heinous crime committed against Dr. Kojo Eyeson of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi whose Toyota Corolla car crashed and had to be salvaged. When he put in a bid to purchase the salvaged car at 4,000 Ghana Cedis as is normally the case in cases of this nature, the medical doctor was shortchanged.

On this occasion SIC sent the documentation to Accra where general Manager Ofori Kuragu who happpens to be Ms. Bawa’s ...... directed that the car be sold at 5,000 Ghana Cedis. But strange-to-relate, Bawa and her boys secretly sold the car close to the speculative figure of over some 12,000 Ghana Cedis and paid a paltry 5,000 at the SIC counter, creating the impression that the car had been sold to the doctor.
Eyeson was dumbfounded when he spoke to THE GHANAIAN SUN and related that even his application letter to SIC to purchase of the salvaged car had not been acknowledged till today. He was therefore shell-shocked that somebody paid for the car in his name.

On interviewing Bawa, THE GHANAIAN SUN became fully aware that some people were commissioned to trace the car as far as Brong Ahafo after the paper spoke to her, but the mission ended on rocks.

There is also the accusation of wrongful engagement where she has been accused of engaging workers without the requisite qualifications, as well as turning the guest house into a family abode while authorizing the SIC pantry staff over there to cook for relatives.

At Bolgatanga at the present time, Ms. Bawa is allegedly putting up a magnificent mansion believed to be of a four-star hotel status which she has engaged SIC security to police the facility while they are paid from the Comapany’s fund.
Also at Ofori Kuragu’s office at the head office where Ms Bawa now sits in an acting capacity as General Manager, someone was caught for forging the signature of the Manager to withdraw cash. However when the issue popped up Ofori Kuragu concealed the issue and rather wanted to victimize the people who apprehended the rogue at the Human Resource Department.
THE SUN

COCAINE-BUSTED CAPO’s BOYS TURN TO JUJU

By Dominic Jale

In the FBI cooler for drug investigations in the United States, Ghana Airport Company’s Shift Commander-turned-cocaine-disciple Mr. Edmond Darkwah, is barking so much that if he does not reduce the volume on his barks pretty soon, all his colleague bad nuts within the security set-up with links to illicit drug smuggling will be busted, handcuffed and airlifted to America.
Now facing the investigative music In America, Darkwah is believed to be co-operating so well that his partners-in-crime back in Accra and elsewhere, are having to resort to all forms of juju and voodoo to mum his spirit and in the process, stop him from mouthing out a collection of names that have soiled their fingers in the illicit trade.
It will be recalled that some three months ago the Federal Bureau of Investigations, acting on a tip-off from a strange happening on a DELTA flight to JFK Airport in Washington DC, flew across the miles to Accra to arrest Edmond Darkwah, for his alleged role in the cocaine parcels carried by the so-called lady cripple courier.
The unnamed lady, together with Darkwa tricked her way through the Kotoka Airport only to get too ecstactic at JFK, where suspicious passengers aboard the same flight who had spotted her with her clutches back in Accra told on her, as soon as she abandoned the walking aid to walk normal and begun giggling with joy for having broken through.
Speaking to THE GHANAIAN SUN under the cloak of anonymity, a Security capo within the Kotoka Airport set-up expressed deep concern about the number of excused duties that have followed Darkwah’s arrest stating categorically that, he had gotten wind of travels to destinations in Benin and Mali, where so-called powerful spiritualists reside.
According to him, happenings at the Airport in recent times since the arrest of Darkwah by the Americans is a far cry from those not-too-distant days, when the same security lads engaged in showy displays of sophisticated de luxe cars, fit only for the wealthy environs of the developed world.
“No-more do these security lads line up in convoy with their range of sophisticated state-of-the-art customised cars en route to popular restaurants and other eating joints, where they sit over bottles of throat-warming alcoholic beverages that sell in foreign currency, while they noisily prattled over a wide range of issues,” the Security capo who first broke the story hot from the coal pot to THE GHANAIAN SUN stated.
Operations of these notorious security agents cannot altogether be condemned in that, quite recently, one of their number doled out a handsome amount of the windfall in the form of cash to an orphanage towards to the eastern part of the country quite close to Togo, that got the poorer ends of the city clapping all the way to their bunkers.

But all that may be gone with the wind in that the concern at the present time is that, once when old bones are mentioned nobody but oldies feel uneasy, these guilty lads are not taking goings-on any easy and may be prepared to go the ends of the world as far as to the far east in India, to seek seemingly elusive protection from disclosure if that will exocise the spirit of Darkwah from implicating them.

Investigations created an opening for three FBI agents to fly from Washington to Accra, where Darkwah was picked up, despite a flurry of protestations from his superiors much earlier. According to the major source, red-hot investigations continue in earnest.