‘Three officials of GIS interdicted based on oral reports’
The immediate past Director of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Dr Peter Wiredu, yesterday told the Accra High Court that the preliminary and final reports based on which three officers of the service accused of issuing permits to some Chinese were interdicted, were oral reports from a three-member committee.
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He, however, added that there was no documentary evidence that supported the setting up of the investigative team.
Dr Wiredu told the court, presided over by Mr Justice Henry Kwofie, an Appeal Court judge sitting as an additional High Court judge, that: “I have told this honourable court that in any administrative bureaucracy, a lot of directives, instructions and assignments are issued verbally, depending on the nature of the assignments.”
He was being cross-examined by Mr Robertson Kpatsa, Counsel for Madam Veronica Addy, one of the interdicted officers.
Respect for the officers
Dr Wiredu said owing to the sensitive nature of the matter under investigation, and also having regard to the seniority of the officers involved, he did not find it prudent to put all communications on the investigations into the open domain of registry files.
“That was to give the highest respect to the officers under investigations,” he said.
Three officials of the GIS — the acting Deputy Director in charge of Legal, Mr Kwame Asuah Takyi; the Deputy Director of Finance and Administration, Madam Veronica Addy, and the Assistant Director for Processing, Mr Joseph Gardiner — were interdicted on October 25, 2013, for allegedly issuing permits to some Chinese without due regard to laid down procedure.
Dr Wiredu admitted to a suggestion by Mr Kpatsa that he could not say for sure that the Chinese passports for which the three officers had been interdicted did not go through the normal procedure because there were no records available.
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When Mr Kpatsa told him that Madam Addy had served in various sensitive positions, including heading the Kotoka International Airport, and that during her time there she had blocked some Palestinians from entering the country and that later information revealed that those persons had been responsible for the bombings in Kenya, Dr Wiredu said he did not see that on her file, since he had not been appointed when Madam Addy was stationed at the airport.
Reliefs
Mr Takyi and Madam Addy have filed separate suits at the Accra High Court, which were consolidated, asserting that their interdiction and the actions of the GIS with regard to the interdiction were tantamount to constructive dismissal from the GIS and contravened Article 191 of the Constitution and had caused them great hardship and embarrassment.
They, are, therefore, seeking a declaration that their interdiction and the events that followed amount to a constructive dismissal and are, therefore, wrong, null and void and of no legal effect because they are inconsistent and contravene the 1992 Constitution.