Hearts MD ordered to step aside
Neil Armstrong Mortagbe, Managing Director of Accra Hearts of Oak, may be clutching air for survival after the Board of Directors last Monday interdicted him until further notice.
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His fate, now hanging precariously on the findings by a three-member committee set up to investigate a litany of allegations against him and which are said to have brought his position and the club’s image into disrepute.
The committee of eminent personalities, comprises former board chairman, E.M. Commodore Mensah, High Court Judge, Ivy Heward-Mills and Apiigi Afenu, all members of the current Hearts board, and has one week to present its report.
After a five-hour meeting in Accra last Monday the three were charged to investigate, among other matters, the truth about how a $1,000 donation by a Hearts sympathiser to skipper Moro Abubakar was released in two instalments of $300 and $700 to the player more than one month after the donation was made through the Managing Director.
The committee was also charged to find the real reason behind a supposed police case for which the Hearts boss was allegedly picked up by the Odokor Police Station.
Then crucially, it was to find justification for how he spent an amount of GH¢21,000 in seven months for renting an ‘official car’ when the board chairman, Togbe Afede XIV, had given him a Mercedes-Benz car for his official use.
The board’s decision to give a hearing was only for the records.
Indeed, it was revealed at the meeting, according to one unimpeachable source, that he had kept his official car from other staff of the Hearts Secretariat until records in the club’s account exposed the matter.
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He was said to have confessed his case to police but had insisted it had nothing to do with the club. Rather, told the board that it had to do with another debt for which he still owed $3,000.
At the board meeting, the accountant at the Hearts Secretariat, Hackman Aidoo, was said to have corroborated the incident of which he was supposed to have bailed Mortagbe from the police station.
The source said the board expressed concern about Mortagbe’s relationship with the Ghana League Clubs Association (GHALCA) and the circumstances that led to his resignation from the position of treasurer.
However, Mortagbe has expressed hope in the outcome of the investigation by the committee.
In an interview with Graphic Sports, he said, “I have faith in the ongoing process and in the end I will be cleared”.