GIS commends four officials for refusing bribe

Published in the Daily Graphic on 18/02/2010, pg 44

Story: Matilda Attram
FOUR officials of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) have been commended for their refusal to take a GH¢4,000 bribe offered them by a suspected fraudster to assist him in the termination of a case.
The GIS commended Messrs Misbawu Yussif, an Assistant Inspector; Richard Dua, an Assistant Immigration Control Officer (AICO) II; Gideon Vanderpuije, AICO I; and Richard Asare, AICO II; all of the operations department of the GIS, for maintaining their professional integrity.
The suspected fraudster, Kenneth Kabutey, 42, is said to have offered the said amount to the four GIS officials to assist him escape from custody and also drop a case of conspiring with three others to sell and selling fake diamonds to two Iranians they had succeeded in luring into the country to transact business.
Kabutey, the leader of the group, with the three others — Ishmael Osman Amartey, 52, Osaka Bawa, 48 and Iking Freeman, a Liberian — and a fifth person who is on the run, were reported in the January 4 edition of an Accra daily to have allegedly sold fake diamonds to the two Iranians at $40,000.
The report stated that the two, who were instructed by the sellers to only open the parcel which contained the supposed diamonds when they got to Iran, were fortunate to be interrupted by the GIS officials at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on the day of their departure on January 24 2010 for questioning.
The report further stated that although the two had gone through screening to manifest their legal entry into the country to transact business, the GIS officials whose suspicion was aroused by some fishy deal going on, insisted and opened the parcel.
“It was when the parcel was opened and the contents closely examined that the contents were found not to be diamonds,” it stated.
It said the two Iranians then led the GIS officials to arrest the sellers to assist the police in their investigations.
Reacting to the conduct of the GIS officials, the Head of Public Relations, Deputy Superintendent Francis Palmdeti, expressed satisfaction at the display of professional integrity by the officials.
He said the officials who were tempted with the bribe were junior officers of the organisation and had demonstrated their integrity with such professional performance.
“These officers could have easily fallen for the temptation, since they receive minimal wages, but stood firm to act professionally,” he said.
He said the commendation of the officials was to motivate others and also to caution unscrupulous officials engaged in bribery to desist from such act, since it negatively dragged the name of the organisation in the mud.
He called on the public to support the service to discharge its duties professionally and urged other officials of the organisation to emulate the examples of the four in protecting people, as well as ensuring security of the nation.
Kabutey, who is the Managing Director of Commercial Investment and Marketing Ghana Limited, an import and export mining company in Accra, is in custody assisting investigations, while the others are on bail.