Commonwealth Games visa scandal: BNI release two suspects on bail

Two staff of the National Sports Authority (NSA) who have been implicated in the running saga of the visa racketeering for fake journalists and other questionable athletes and deported by the Australian authorities have been granted bail after a brief detention by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

Hussein Akuetteh Addy and Ms Christine Ashley were detained by the BNI last Friday upon their arrival in Ghana from Australia and stayed in detention until Monday evening before being bailed.

A reliable source at the NSA told the Graphic Sports that it took the intervention of some top officials of the NSA to get the duo bailed.

According to the source, as members of staff who had been detained, the NSA senior officials went to enquire about their detention and, subsquently, assisted them to be granted bail.

“They are still our staff, no court has indicted and charged them and our outfit went there to inquire about their arrest,” the source stated.

Their bail conditions could not be ascertained by this paper but it is a trite knowledge that they are being monitored by the security agencies, according to the source.

It is not clear, however, how the two warranted an invitation from the BNI, but the source noted that it might have been at the insistence of the national security to who the Ministry of Youth and Sports has turned to, to investigate the issue.

The two officials were suspended and consequently sent back home from Team Ghana’s camp for their alleged complicity in the visa scandal that caused embarrassment to Ghanaian officials in Australia.

It would be recalled that the GOC president, Ben Nunoo Mensah, took swift action in suspending the two from the camp of Team Ghana after ordering the Chef De Mission, Mohammed Sahnoon to do so and send them back home.

However, the source, situating the scandal as an individual malice and not borne out of the NSA stated that the fate of the two is yet to be decided by the NSA.

“I cant tell for now as to whether they would be suspended or dismissed, management has not met on them,” the source stated.

According to the source, the NSA can’t and wouldn’t condone with acts such as this scandal that could bring its name into disrepute.