President's men at the Jubilee House: An impediment to progress

Deputy Chiefs of Staff Asenso Boakye and Abu Jinapor

It has become a common practice at Jubilee House (seat of government, Ghana) that petitions, information or complaints meant for the President’s consideration and possible disciplinary action, some way, somehow, get intercepted when they reach certain individuals at the Secretariat of the President.

Specifically, the two Deputies of Staff, Jinapor and Asenso, when they receive information meant for the President, they block them, call the offenders, talk to them, warn them and take whatever from them, leaving the people to go free. All these happen on the President’s “blind side.” 

This is why most Chief Executives Officers do whatever pleases them because even if complaints are made about them, these complaints won’t reach the right ears but that of those whose make it their business to block information from reaching the President. So as you can see, there are things going on that the President is not aware of.

Numerous petitions have been written to the President but if these don’t pass through the right channel, they get blocked, so he will never receive them or hear of them. As a result of these actions, a lot of information does not get to the President for him to act positively on them. 

Unfortunately, Bediatuo, Asenso, Jinapor and especially Saratu, who happens to be the worst of them all refuse to allow information or visitors to have access to the President and rather choose to sit with these visitors and sort matters out with them using their own discretion. 

Information intended for the President should be passed through the back door if one wants to avoid these three individuals at the President’s secretariat. Only when this information reaches the President, do we see the necessary action being taken. They lie to him and this is why the man feels all is well whereas that is not the case.

Now in another development, they are asking the National Security Officers at the Jubilee House to go for polygraph and some other tests. This is obviously an attempt by one of them to make some extra money. 

The question here is: why is it just the National Security Officers who have to undergo the polygraph test and not the entire staff of Jubilee House? It has come to light that the officers did not go through the actual polygraph test but were taken through a process and afterwards, they were warned not to tell anyone about it. It is surprising to know that, even though these officers didn’t take the polygraph test, a bill has been prepared charging for all.

Who is protecting Afia Asabea (Export Promotions)? She has been summoned to Jubilee House twice and on both occasions she was only advised and let off. She distributed brown envelopes and went back to do the same thing she was called in for. Obviously she keeps doing the wrong thing because she knows she has the backing of some people.

Captain Koda is always harassing the security officers by asking them to wear suit so that they appear to be well taken care of by the Jubilee House or the Government. Meanwhile this is not the case at all since they are just given GHS 1000.00 every month, which is barely enough to take care of their family responsibilities. 

Serious action should be taken to address these concerns at the Jubilee House that have been raised, because these guys at Jubilee House are not helping the President. The Ministers also give him false reports and create an impression that all is well, thus, preventing the President from seeing what is really on the ground. 

The ideas expressed here are known and shared by many Ghanaians in and outside the Jubilee House.
All should be bold to criticize people in government that are misbehaving themselves on the blind side of the President so that Ghana can really move forward.