The Director of Political Affairs to the Chief of Staff, Frank Asiedu Bekoe popularly called Protozoa has written to the Multimedia Group seeking a retraction and apology for an allegation leveled against him in a recent documentary.
A documentary aired on Joy News programme, A.M show on January 15, 2020 alleged that Mr. Bekoe who was then a member of the Confiscated Assets Committee allocated and auctioned seized vehicles to politically connected cronies of the government without the beneficiaries paying the required assessed.
“JoyNews investigations have uncovered how the country lost thousands of cedis after confiscated cars were auctioned cheaply by politically connected individuals”, a story on myjoyonline about the documentary indicated.
“These vehicles are part of 151 confiscated cars that the Director of Political Affairs at the Chief of Staff Office, Frank Asiedu Bekoe, wrote to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to be allocated to selected beneficiaries”, it added.
The documentary further alleged that Mr. Bekoe, when contacted by the producer of the documentary declined to comment on the matter.
But Mr. Bekoe in letter written to Multimedia by his lawyers Safo& Marfo@Law has denied the allegations contained in the documentary and subsequent stories carried on it.
He said when he was contacted by a journalist from Multimedia on the subject he requested the reporter to put his questions into writing for same to be addressed but it was not done.
“Thus it was inaccurate to state in your documentary that our client declined to comment on the issue.”
The letter further states that Mr. Bekoe as a member of the Confiscated Assets Committee had no input in the determination of prices or assessable duties on the confiscated vehicles.
“The imposition of taxes on vehicles, charges, duties etc is the prerogative of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), hence the suggestion that our client has given cars away cheaply is untenable,” the statement said.
The letter adds that Mr. Bekoe only recommended people who applied to purchase confiscated vehicles to the Commissioner General for consideration and the outcome was to be solely determined by the Customs Division of GRA.
“Therefore, the letter of recommendation as endorsed by our client cannot and should not be construed as a letter of allocation.”
Mr. Bekoe is, therefore, demanding an immediate apology and a retraction from Multimedia within seven days, failure for which he will proceed to court to vindicate himself.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak