A former Public Relations and External Affairs Director of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), Nana Yaa Akyempim Jantuah, has disclosed how she was humiliated by the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) during her arrest in 2017.
Invited by the NIB, then Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Nana Yaa says she and the Executive Secretary of the PURC, Samuel Sarpong, had been summoned for questioning on financial malfeasance at the Commission.
The invitation, according to Madam Jantuah was on May 12, 2017 where they were detained and granted bail the following day.
Mr. Sarpong’s interrogation was on an alleged transfer of GH¢435,087 from PURC funds into his personal accounts, whilst Jantuah was probed on a reported use of GH¢120,000 in PURC funds to purchase 350 Christmas hampers.
The former Secretary of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) tendered in her resignation Tuesday, May 16, which was effected November 2017.
Explaining what ensued during her arrest, Nana Yaa says she was stripped naked by the NIB, detained in cells where she encountered a traumatic experience.
She says despite her Chairman’s advice to the Vice President not to get her out of the PURC due to her experience and contribution to the Commission’s well being, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was adamant.
“I remember when all the issues were going on, they took me to BNI and all manner of places, Economic and Organised Crime Office, Criminal Investigations Department, everywhere to investigate me. And my chairman told Dr Mahamudu Bawumia that don’t do this to this girl. We have trained her in engineering, we have trained her in tariffs, if you let her go. You’re throwing away an asset.
“I’m pleading with you, don’t let her go, because if she goes, this sector is going to suffer. I was almost like an anchor, I call this person, that person, whenever there was an issue. I mean I wanted everybody to be alright.
“…I think one day I got up and said what is actually going on? They took me to BNI, stripped me naked, put me in a cell, put handcuffs on me,” she said on Accra-based Channel One TV Tuesday, July 02, 2024.
She disclosed that she is still struggling to forgive the persons behind the trauma she encountered, indicating has resorted to divine guidance to help her forgive those people.
“Thursday, I went to church and was praying to God to help me to forgive. Because it just flashed into my mind and I remembered how a lady said what is the colour of your of hair, eyes, remove everything and then they put a gap on me and sent me to the cell. I asked myself, is that how Ghana thanks you when you leave everything, and you serve your people? she asked.
When asked the number of days she spent at the cells, she said, “I think I stayed there for two days. They made sure I was there alone…”
“I was in a wheelchair, I was admitted, nothing was working in my body, I had an infection, bacteria reddened my body. they gave me an old mattress in the cell. I picked the bacteria from there, very stubborn bacteria…Everybody thought I was gone but I survived it.”
“I reported to BNI for three years, it’s like you have been incarcerated.”
Content by: Felix Anim-Appau
