Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for Ghana
Newsline: Hungarian diplomat arrested in Ghana for reckless driving
Some pedestrians and motorists who ply the Airport area road in Accra heaped praises on the Ghana Police Service following the arrest of a man in CD plated vehicle, who was later identified as a Hungarian diplomat, for reckless driving. According to eyewitnesses, Police officers on traffic duty at the Airport bypass arrested the diplomat who was driving an ash coloured Toyota RAV 4 for the offense of careless and inconsiderate driving which is a violation of the country’s road traffic regulations. The eyewitnesses noted the diplomat resisted being taken to the police station for several minutes after his arrest. In the course of his resistant, the eyewitnesses said officers effecting the arrest noted that the diplomat had on several occasions been warned for the same conduct. Further checks by Pulse Ghana revealed the diplomat involved is the deputy head of mission for the Hungarian embassy in Ghana David Bekesi. (https://www.pulse.com.gh/motorists-praise-police-after-hungarian-diplomat-is-arrested-for-reckless-driving/wewz4p1) A follow up to the Police Station has revealed that the diplomat, was released by the police after the matter was referred to the Foreign Affairs Ministry in line with diplomatic practices.
Newsline: Ghana apologises to Nigeria for embassy demolition
Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has apologised to Nigeria after a building inside the Nigerian High Commission compound in Accra was demolished. Mr Akufo-Addo has ordered an investigation, a statement from the Nigerian government said after his call with President Muhammadu Buhari. Armed men reportedly stormed the compound last week and destroyed buildings under construction. Two people have been arrested over the incident. They have been charged with Unlawful Entry And Causing Unlawful Damage. A businessman who had previously claimed that he owned the land where the building was being put up had led the demolition operation, according to an article posted on the Nigerian High Commission website in Ghana. “The man showed up last week with some papers to support his claim and began to knock down the fence surrounding the building,” the article quotes a source at the ministry of foreign affairs as saying. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53148609) Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said a bulldozer was used during the 19 June incident which destroyed two residential buildings. He called the demolition “outrageous and criminal” and urged Ghanaian authorities to protect Nigeria’s diplomatic buildings.
Newsline: Ghana police declare 3 Nigerians wanted over kidnapping of diplomat
The Ghana Police Service has declared three Nigerians wanted over the alleged kidnap of the Consular – General and Head of Mission of Estonia to the West African country. Popular Accra-based radio station Starr FM reported that police rescued the 61-year-old foreign envoy after he was reportedly kidnapped in the early hours of Thursday, April 18 while on his regular morning walk in the nation’s capital city Accra. (https://www.legit.ng/1234656-ghana-police-declare-3-nigerians-wanted-alleged-kidnapping-diplomat.html) According to the report, the diplomat was rescued on Friday, April 19 by a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team following a tip off.
Newsline: Ghana to open an embassy in Norway
Ghana will soon open an embassy in Norway to boost bilateral relations between the two countries. This was revealed by Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, during an interview with Class 91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show host Moro Awudu in New York following a meeting between President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Norway Premier Erna Solberg – both co-Chairs of the Advocacy Group of Eminent Persons for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Ms Botchway said Norway already has an embassy in Ghana and noted that the West African country will also put up one in Oslo, the Norwegian capital.
https://www.businessghana.com/site/news/general/173020/Ghana-to-open-an-embassy-in-Norway
Newsline: Ghana embassy staff arrested in Madrid for counterfeiting
At the head of the organisation was a Ghanaian citizen, whom the agents had been following for years: “He has a history of fraud, forgery and drug trafficking”. Passports for 600 euros, residence permits for 300 and driving tests for 2,000. These were the fees of a criminal organization dedicated to falsifying documents, a network that was dismantled Wednesday after 46 people were arrested in 11 cities. According to El Confidencial, sources from the National Police, the body that has taken charge of the operation, the tentacles of the plot reached the Ghanaian embassy, where two of its workers were in charge of providing them with all kinds of documents.
Newsline: US Embassy in Ghana suspected of having tunnel to airport
Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Bernard Mornah says he has every reason to suspect that the new constructed American Embassy at Cantonment has a huge tunnel from the Embassy to the Kotoka International Airport. According to him, “My suspicion is that, it is possible that there may be a tunnel from that place to the airport. It is my suspicion; I have not heard it but that is my suspicion because every evening between 6pm to 8pm around American Embassy, you will see the soldiers running around jogging and it is obvious that it is not just the face that we see that is where they are staying. It means they are staying underneath.” The PNC Chairman stressed that the Americans have too much liberty to the extent that three roads have been blocked permanently against the directives of Town and Country Planning in order to construct the American Embassy.
Newsline: The true story of the fake US embassy in Ghana
On Friday 2 December 2016, a curious story appeared on the website GhanaBusinessNews.com. “Ghana security authorities shut down fake US Embassy in Accra,” the headline declared. For a decade, the story went, there had been a fake US embassy in the Ghanaian capital. The fraudsters behind it had flown the American flag from their building and even hung a portrait of Barack Obama on the wall. The criminal network behind the scam had advertised on billboards and prowled the most remote villages of west Africa, searching for gullible customers. They brought them to Accra, and sold them visas for as much as $6,000. According to a US state department statement, which had been published in early November, the fake embassy was operated by “figures from both Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings and a Ghanaian attorney practicing immigration and criminal law”. The American authorities supplied a picture of an old, two-storey pink building with a tin roof, originally captioned: “The exterior of the fake embassy in Accra, Ghana.” The caption was later changed to: “One of several buildings used by the disrupted fraud ring.” Reuters reported that the Americans, with the help of the Ghana Detectives Bureau, had raided the fake embassy. Several people were arrested, and officials seized 150 passports from 10 different countries. The US state department said, the number of fraudulent documents coming from west Africa had gone down by 70% as a result of this and other raids, and “criminal leaders no longer have the political cover they once had”. But the story was fake. It might have started with a diplomatic cable – a classified memo – sent from the US embassy in Accra to the state department in Washington DC on 25 July 2016, titled “Ghana: Fake US Embassy Closed for Business.” When I asked the US state department for comment, an official simply told me that US Diplomatic Security Service officials work with Ghanaian authorities to uphold the integrity of the visa system. The state department declined to provide additional information in response to specific questions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/28/the-true-story-of-the-fake-us-embassy-in-ghana
Newsline: Liberia Embassy in Ghana says Ebola under control
The Embassy of the Republic of Liberia in Ghana has allayed fears that the country is nearing collapse as a result of the deadly Ebola epidemic. According the the Embassy, the epidemic “is under control” in the country. The Liberian Ambassador to the United States, Jeremiah Sulunteh in an earlier interview with the media, said Liberia was “close to collapse” as a result of the devastating Ebola outbreak. So for over 3,000 affected persons have been killed. But the Charge D’Affairs of the Embassy of the republic of Liberia in Ghana, Musu Ruhle in an interview with Citi News refutted the claims. She indicated that the situation has greatly improved, “There are patients leaving the hospitals now who have been treated and are going home and we have empty beds. Before, two three months ago, there were no beds, but now there are empty beds,” she indicated. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that health-care officials would need close to six months to tackle the Ebola outbreak in the worsely affected countries – Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/10/12/ebola-in-liberia-under-control-liberia-embassy-in-ghana/
Newsline: Ghana’s Embassy in Burkina Faso spends more than $600,000 on fence wall
Ghana’s Embassy in Burkina Faso will soon be investigated for allegedly spending $656,248.48 on the construction of a fence wall. Bank of Ghana Deputy Governor, Millison Narh described the amount as outrageous and requires thorough probing. The revelation was contained in BoG’s 2013 foreign exchange receipt payment presented to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. Mr Narh could not justify the expenditure on the fence wall but indicated the matter would be investigated and answers provided the Committee.
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=326506
Newsline: US Embassy apologizes to Ghana president after critical tweet
The U.S. Embassy in Ghana is apologizing after a staff member sent what’s being described as “an errant tweet” criticizing the president from the official Embassy Twitter account. Ghanaian President John Mahama had tweeted about the country’s financial woes, saying that “as a people, we have had to make sacrifices” and that the results of those cutbacks would start to show soon. A post from the U.S. Embassy’s Twitter account later retorted to the president: “And what sacrifices are you making?” In an apology, the U.S. Embassy in Accra says it has apologized to Ghana’s president and is also apologizing to the Ghanaian people. It says that an embassy staff member mixed up a personal Twitter account with that of the embassy’s.
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/07/21/us-embassy-apologies-to-ghana-leader-for-tweet
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