President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has asked the Al Jazeera Media Network to retract and apologise for its “unfair and inaccurate” commentary against him and the Government of Ghana in its recent ‘Gold Mafia’ documentary.
Al Jazeera’s latest investigative piece, ‘Gold Mafia’, has uncovered a band of criminals driving gold smuggling and money laundering worth billions of dollars in Southern Africa.
A gold trader, Alistair Mathias, described by the investigative reporters as a financial architect who builds money laundering schemes for corrupt politicians, was approached by undercover journalists posing as Chinese criminals to help them launder money from China.
Speaking to the undercover reporters while trying to strike a deal, he alleged that President Akufo-Addo was his friend and a lawyer.
Alistair had earlier revealed that he had been smuggling US$40 million worth of gold from Ghana monthly, which is US$480 million worth of gold annually.
Ultimatum
However, a letter signed by the Executive Secretary to the President, Nana Bediatuo Asante, has given Al Jazeera seven days to retract and apologise to President Akufo-Addo over references made to him and the Government of Ghana in the documentary.
“I am instructed by the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to demand formally that Al Jazeera Media Network (“Al Jazeera”) retract immediately and apologise for airing an inaccurate and unfair documentary that contained spurious and unsubstantiated allegations against the President and the Government of Ghana,” it stated.
The Presidency said some “parts of the documentary are malicious, defamatory, and a calculated attempt to tarnish the reputation of the President and Government of Ghana.”
It demanded further and better particulars from Al Jazeera on the period for which the President allegedly provided legal representation to Mr. Alistair Mathias or his company, Guldrest Resources.
Per the Jubilee House letter, Al Jazeera “refused or failed to provide these details as requested and went ahead with the broadcast of the documentary”.
In the documentary, Alistair outlined his modus operandi to the undercover journalists, suggesting that the most important credential of his operations in Africa comes from the trust that some dubious politicians have in him to keep their siphoned resources safely tucked away.
The Presidency finally stressed that it is imperative that AI Jazeera acts forthwith on its demand within seven days from the day of receipt of this letter.
False publication
Meanwhile, Guldrest Resources Company Ltd, a gold exporting enterprise registered in Ghana, which is at the centre of a recent publication by the international media house, has responded to the investigative piece, describing it as spurious, a bunch of untruths and bereft of substance.
It has also emerged that the main character in the investigative piece, Alistair Jude Mathias, has no connection with President Akufo-Addo, nor the law firm that President Akufo-Addo founded.
Reacting to the comment by Alistair Mathias, Kow Essuman, the legal counsel to President Akufo-Addo, described Mathias’s allegations as spurious, and called on Ghanaians to ignore them.
Mr Essuman observed that the President had not been in private practice since 2000, and insisted that the President never acted as Mathias’s counsel.
“The President has not been in private practice since 2000; neither has the president nor his law firm, Akufo-Addo, Prempeh & Co, acted as lawyer for this Alistair Mathias or Guldrest. The president does not know this Mathias or Guldrest. Ignore the spurious allegations,” said Essuman, writing on Twitter.
NDC honcho
Indeed, court records rather show that when a case involving two Ghanaians who stood surety for Mathias, a Canadian businessman, came up for hearing in September 2014, they were neither represented by the President Akufo-Addo nor his law firm.
The records also point to the fact that one Mustapha Gbande, a special aide to the then National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, Kwabena Adjei, stood surety for the businessman Mathias. Gbande is now the deputy general secretary of the NDC.
Guldrest Resources Company Ltd states in its rejoinder: “Between the sixth and seventh days of April 2023, the attention of Guldrest Resources Company Ltd was drawn to some publications by Al Jazeera News Network and its investigative unit on some spurious and scathing allegations of gold smuggling and money laundering levelled against Guldrest Resources, a registered Ghanaian company.
“Guldrest Resources Ghana wishes to react to the aforementioned damning publications as follows:
“The contents of the said allegations of 6-7 April 2023 are without any substance of fact and truth. We implore all who have read the said fake news to ignore same as palpable falsehood and unethically made, in utmost bad faith, and actuated by malice.”
Allegations
In a letter dated 23 March 2023, Al Jazeera and its cronies alleged that, according to their investigative report, Guldrest Resources FZC in the United Arab Emirates received laundered cash equivalent to US$16 million from Kaloti Jewellery International DMCC in 2012.
Guldrest Resources Ghana duly responded in writing on 3 April 2023, and described these claims as untrue and bereft of substance.
Al Jazeera then changed its story on April 4, 2023 via email, and alleged that Guldrest Resources Ghana rather had a subsidiary company in Dubai, called Guldrest Resources FZC. The broadcaster, therefore, wished to inquire whether this entity (Guldrest Resource FZC) had received the cash equivalent of $16 million from Kaloti Jewellery International DMCC in 2012.
Guldrest Resources Ghana described the claim as false and spineless, according to a letter dated April 5, 2023 in response to the original request.
