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The Fourth Estate has learnt with considerable interest, the statement by the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, that monies were allegedly paid by the Chief Executive Officer and other officials of the National Service Authority (NSA) to a Member of Parliament (MP) to ostensibly influence the media to kill the NSS ghost names investigations.
“We also have evidence that in November 2024, the CEO of the NSS and others paid a Ghanaian Member of Parliament to kill the story in the media and to defend them,” Dr Ayine said at a press conference held on March 24, 2025.
Even though in the course of our investigations we were aware of several manoeuvrings to kill the story, we least expected that monies could have been paid to no less a person than a member of parliament to help stop the story from being published. We can now understand why out of desperation, and when it became clear that the efforts to stop The Fourth Estate from publishing the story could not work, the NSA resorted to using the court system to block the story.
In the interest of transparency and accountability on this matter, we call on the Attorney General (AG) to make known the MP to whom the money was paid to do the bidding of the NSA officials. This is important because in our view, MPs are supposed to be protectors of the public purse and not those who will aid any action to drain the public purse. Also, the disclosure by the AG constitutes a serious indictment on the entire institution of the Parliament of Ghana if the individual is not named.
The Fourth Estate remains absolutely committed to public interest journalism. We would, therefore, at all times ensure that we continue to focus on promoting transparency and accountability through critical journalism.
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