It is has become public knowledge that one journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has worked tirelessly to put the final nail on the coffin of Africa’s waste management expert Zoomlion Ghana Limited by labelling it fraudulent and all kinds of names in the past eight years.
I have cautioned Manasseh several times to resist calling the company and its owner Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong fraudulent because no court of competent jurisdiction has said so but Manasseh’s proclivity to brand the company and the man as same will not let him rest.
In February 2020, I cautioned you against libeling and slander on the innocent and venerable Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong and his company Zoomlion Ghana Limited when you sought to jubilate and publish preposterous statements against the company and his person after Zoomlion lost the appeal in the High Court in Accra. Your headline was “Fraudulent’ Zoomlion loses appeal against Auditor General on GHc184 million fumigation payments”.
I cautioned you with a saying most elders in our community like using to direct the young to exercise restrain while they do anything. I said “Our elders have maintained that the wise thread with caution but the stupid – in their own direction”. I am sure this saying will now reshape your public utterances for no one ever knew tomorrow but as your elder brother I considered the future before cautioning you which I feel vindicated.
You should be imagining and regretting your sheer foolishness and stupidity in your understanding of the Accra High Court ruling which dismissed Zoomlion’s appeal against the Auditor General in the issue of surcharges and disallowance emanating from audit works you orchestrated. I said you orchestrated it because your found new love in the Auditor General Mr. Daniel Domelovo is questionable. You and lawyers of the Auditor General have been conniving and condoning to bring this company down. If not how on earth can they use skewed videos recorded by you a biased journalist as evidence against Zoomlion in court?
It is obvious that Manasseh has never written or made positive comments about Zoomlion Ghana Limited or its Executive Chairman, Dr. Siaw Agyepong in spite of the several successes the company chalks in changing the face of waste management in Africa and creating several jobs in the waste management value chain across the country. Recently, the company has been constructing several waste recycling and composting plants in all the sixteen regions in Ghana and yet Manasseh has failed to see that and commend them but if the bad news comes even at midnight Manasseh will have something to say. Is this not show of wickedness and demonic agenda against the company? You have succeeded in making yourself a prophet of doom at least for Zoomlion you are. This type of journalism you practice is devilish and jaundice of egoism where you are prevented to see the good but only the bad. Journalism is a balanced game and not one sided.
I set out an article titled “Detractor Manasseh’s prayer to see Jospong down will end in hopelessness” in February 2020 where upon I cautioned you against tagging the company as fraudulent for you needed to read the details of the judgement to make an informed decision in that my article. I feel elated you have been put clear in your ignorance of the law and how it rolls.
In Manasseh’s ignorant, emotional and predictably diabolic mood, he quoted portions of the Zoomlion and the Auditor General’s statements to the court and intimated that the company was found to be fraudulent at all material times which was just a figment of his illusionary imagination.
To be famous, one mustn’t ride on the back of another’s challenges. Celebrating successes and ringing same to the world isn’t a cowardly endeavor.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court vindicated Zoomlion against your wicked wishes. A seven-member Supreme Court presided by Justice Jones Dotse ruled that the Auditor General whose decision you were jubilating on and which added impetus to your egoistic ranting and exposure of your ignorance that Zoomlion is fraudulent has no capacity to disallow and surcharge the company. Shame on you and your consistent diabolical hatred.
For the purposes of clarity to you and readers, an Accra High Court had earlier cleared Africa’s Waste Management giant Zoomlion Ghana Limited of any allegations of fraud as alleged in October 27, 2018 by the Auditor General who issued a surcharge and disallowance against the company for an amount in excess of GHc184 million for fumigation exercise it carried as you jubilated excitingly when the company lost the appeal.
Zoomlion was unsatisfied with the decision of the Auditor General in 2018 and filed an appeal at the High Court against such decision in accordance with Order 54A of the High Court {Civil Procedure} rule.
The court presided by Justice Georgina Mensah Datsa in its ruling on the matter particularly on the allegations of fraud said the Auditor General had not been able to establish any case of fraud against the Waste Management company saying “the Respondent had not established that the Appellant (Zoomlion) had defrauded the state”.
Zoomlion’s case was that, the Auditor General “erred on its finding that the Appellant had been paid a total amount of GHc184,901650.00 without due process and this has occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice.”
It also contended that, “the Respondent erred in its finding that the Appellant had between the year 2007-2017, been paid an amount of GHc184,901650.00 devoid of due process without affording or giving the Appellant the opportunity to respond to the allegation therefore it breaches the rule of natural justice and this has occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice.”
The High Court states that, by confirming the Respondent’s decision to disallow and surcharge the sum of GHc184,901650 on the Appellant, the learned trial judge erred fundamentally in law assuming that, the Respondent’s power to disallow and surcharge expenditure may be extended to private persons such as the Appellant (Zoomlion).
Now, let me further caution you against your long harbored bitterness that has guided you against seeing hard working Ghanaian businesses progress to desist from such attitude. Maybe you should be telling Ghanaians why you so hate Dr. Siaw Agyepong this much. It is my wish that sooner than later the company will measure your words against it legally. Maybe you should prepare your pocket as much as your mouth will say many words against people without caution.
Until when I expose you further in my next article, a word to the wise is enough.
Mashoud Bawa
Writer is a development communications specialist with keen interest in matters of environmental sanitation.
