After initially holding back his comments on allegations of thievery and corruption against him, a Deputy Chief of Staff, Samuel Abu Jinapor has opened up, stating his side of the story.
He said the corruption accusation against him and his colleague Francis Asenso Baokye arose from his attempt to act on a petition he received from uniBank complaining about alleged unfair treatment meted to it by the management of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
Unibank, which used to collect revenue on behalf of the hospital, felt sidelined after management of Korle Bu decided to outsource that responsibility to another bank, without giving uniBank a chance to put in a bid. The bank subsequently petitioned Board of Korle Bu and copied the Office of the Chief of Staff.
Popular musician, Kwame Asare Obeng alias A-Plus had accused Mr. Jinapor and his colleague Francis Asenso Boakye of fraudulent conduct in dealing with the matter. The Police CID investigated the matter and concluded that the allegation was “baseless”.
Kwame Asare Obeng
Explaining his involvement in the whole issues, Mr. Jinapor said one of his duties as Deputy Chief of staff at the Presidency, is to receive petitions on behalf of the president, Nana Akufo-Addo and act on them.
“The complaint having been made, I picked up a phone and called Dr. Anyaa [Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu] and sought to find out about the complaint I received…we spoke for about 1 minute 30 seconds.
“Having spoken to him and waiting for a response which never came, I mentioned the issue to the Minister of Health and he said he himself will intervene and deal with the matter,” he said on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Friday, September 29, 2017.
“So far as that was concerned, I and my colleague [Asenso Boakye] have dealt with the matter,” he stated further.
Francis Asenso Boakye and Samuel Abu Jinapor
In the view of the Deputy Chief of staff, “This is his [A-Plus’] basis for alleging that we are corrupt.”
Asked by the host if it was not possible for him to use his Office to compel the management of Korle Bu to give the contract to uniBank, Mr. Jinapor said he “will never, ever do that.”
Mr. Jinapor stressed that “I’m not that stupid and I won’t do that. And it never happened; it couldn’t have happened.”
“First of all there was no issue about giving a contract…it had everything to do with a process.
“In all of this, neither myself nor Mr. Asenso Boakye held the view that Korle Bu was wrong…we never came to that conclusion,” he said.