Castle Boys are angry at President John Mills
Snippets of information available to The Independent newspaper as at the time of going to press over the week end indicates that, some of the Castle Boys are angry with President John Mills over his directive to the authorities at the Tema Harbour to arrest anybody who comes to transact business at the harbor in his name.
The President was last Friday incensed over the startling revelations of bribery and corruption uncovered at the Tema port. President Mills stormed the Tema port following an investigative piece that exposed how the country has been denied of due revenue by corrupt officials, who operate at the port, and who in collusion with private companies at the harbour under-declare imports and thus evade tax.
The investigative piece revealed that, nearly every stage of paper work at the Tema harbour was riddled with bribery with officials and this was captured on videos which exposed port officials collecting monies from importers and pocketing amidst dancing and jubilation.
But the President’s directive that, anybody who goes to the port to trade in his name should be arrested, has incurred the wrath of some of his boys at the seat of government, the Castle, who are angry that, the directive would deprive them of making money.
“This is a serious blow to us,” one of the Castle boys confided in The Independent and said, “we are not getting anything from anybody by serving the government at the Castle but what we do by assisting our brothers and sisters has also been blocked.”
Another Castle Boy told The Independent that, “some of us go to the port to transact genuine business but now that this directive has been given, we are in trouble, because everybody from the Castle is a suspect and so port officials would not want to deal with us anymore.”
In the President’s unannounced visit to the Harbour, he condemned in no uncertain terms the stinking corruption that goes on at the harbour. “There are people who come here throwing their weight around; dropping names of so called higher ups.
I have General Mordey and I am telling you if anybody comes here with the President’s name, the first thing you should do is to arrest that person,” President Mills chastised the security for not bringing the acts of corruption to his attention but had to take a journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, to uncover such a nation-wrecking attitude being indulged in by port officials when security personnel charged with the statutory responsibility of uncovering corruption and raising revenue are either sleeping on the job or are neck deep in the corrupt activities.
The Castle boys indicated that, “we helped the party to come to power thinking that, we would be helped, but nobody is helping us, yet the moves we make legitimately to earn some income by assisting our brothers and sisters to clear their goods expeditiously, is also being blocked.”
“Well, this is a lesson and some of us believe that, if this is how we are going to be treated, then we have to advise ourselves come 2012, so that we don’t waste our monies and energies only to be treated this way,” they lamented. President Mills chastised the security personnel at the Tema port to all times search their conscience to find out if their actions were in the ultimate interest of the nation.
Fuming with rage, President Mills called for the institutionalization of a law that will require that, officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service declare their assets. He also attacked the Judiciary over the discharge of some 14 CEPS officials who were facing prosecution for their roles in the cocoa smuggling allegations made against them following a similar investigative piece by Anas Aremeyaw Anas at the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border.
Expressing disappointment with the judiciary, President Mills indicated that he would no longer tolerate such grave lapses from the Judiciary.
Source: The Independent
Category: News
