
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Hannah Tetteh has got some few days to cause the arrest of a football player agent, Isaac Adomako, who is indebted to the country to the tune of US$5,839.87.
Failure to arrest Mr. Adomako and get him pay the amount will come with a punishment from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament.
The directive which was issued by the Chairman of the PAC, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, Monday, was at the backdrop of Mr. Adomako’s refusal to pay the said amount after the Ministry, under the instructions of Madam Tetteh, went to his rescue together with seven others in Tehran.
The player agent, together with the seven, all footballers, were found stranded in Tehran, Iran, between July and August 2013.
Their visas had expired.
Mr. Adomako who was also a casualty of the expired visa had taken the players to Tehran with the promise that he was going to get them contract to play football with Iranian clubs.
However, he had made no effort or whatsoever to actually make sure that, that was a real possibility before they embarked on that visit after taking some amount of money from the players.
Aware of the consequences that may befall them, they quickly got in touch with Ghana’s Mission in Tehran to come to their aid.
“They were put up in a hostel for a number of days. He (Adomako) told them that they were supposed to be having trials – no trials took place and at the period they were given in their visa to stay in Tehran, effectively they had no arrangement or whatsoever for having no contract to play football. It was at that point that they got in touch with the Mission and they also informed me that it was very likely that if they were to overstay in Tehran, especially, at the time that their visa had expired, they were likely to be picked up and imprisoned and that if for one reason or the other, if they were suspected that their reason in Tehran had nothing to do with football, there might be other consequences”, Madam Hannah who had appeared before the PAC to speak on the matter which was captured in the 2011 Auditor-General’s report narrated.
She added “And so, they wanted permission rather to keep them in Tehran to repatriate them to Ghana. And given that their funds were completely finished, there was no way that was going to happen unless the Mission took responsibility for payment of the tickets. So, I instructed that they do so, so that they could come back to Ghana”.
Madam Tetteh further explained that on arrival, the group was invited to her office where she explained to them, especially, the player agent, to refund the money because it was not the obligation of the government to pay for their airlifting to Ghana.
According to her, government only went to the group’s rescue because of the circumstances they found themselves in.
She told the PAC that since then “No refund has been made”.
According to her, because her office was bent on retrieving the money, she has referred the matter to the Attorney-General’s Department to take it up.
However, the Chairman of the PAC said although she made a good move to rescue the stranded Ghanaians, the action of the agent borders on criminality and therefore should have reported the matter to the Police to pick him immediately the group arrived in Ghana.
He nonetheless, directed the Foreign Minister to withdraw her referral to the A-G’s department and rather report the matter to the Police to cause the arrest of Mr. Adomako.