News:
July 8, 2010
The Works and Housing Minister Alban Bagbin is threatening legal action against the Editor of the Daily Searchlight newspaper, Ken Kuranchie.
The notice follows a publication by the paper that Mr Bagbin forged documents to present his wife, one Alice Adwoa Yonas, as secretary to a Parliamentary delegation that attended a forum organized by the Parliamentarians for Global Action in the US in October 2009.
The Capitol Hill forum is said to have been attended by legislators from 115 parliaments across the globe.
A “very hurt” Mr Bagbin told Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday he would take the issue to the “end of the world,” describing the allegations as a “vicious piece of propaganda.”
According to the former Majority Leader, under no circumstance would he present his wife as a secretary to a delegation of Parliament travelling with the taxpayer’s money.
Having served the organization since 1994, Mr Bagbin said he was invited to last year’s meeting with his wife contrary to what Mr Kuranchie’s “investigative” report had established.
The Searchlight editor told Evans Mensah, sit-in host of the Super Morning Show, his publication was based on a series of information he had gleaned from different sources including Mr Bagbin and the Director of Public Affairs in Parliament, Mr Jones Kugblenu.
Whilst Mr Bagbin denies any contact with Mr Kuranchie over the issue, Mr Kugblenu said he had only been asked about the identity of Mr Bagbin’s wife.
According to Mr Kugblenu, he had told Mr Kuranchie earlier that it was “not possible” for Mr Bagbin to present his wife as secretary to a delegation appointed by the Parliament of the republic.
Mr Kuranchie told Joy FM he drew his conclusion of malfeasance on the part of Mr Bagbin was predicated on a document he had intercepted detailing attendees of the event.
Meanwhile, reacting to the threat to send him to court, Mr Kuranchie said “I think that this is a risk that we take in this business; we take it along as it comes.”
Story by Fiifi Koomson/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana