EOCO boss goes wild at crisis meeting

STORY: STEPHEN DARKO & ATO KEELSON

Following our exposé on the alleged repressive management style of the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the matter has taken a dramatic turn.

Mr. Kwaku Akpadzie Mortey, in a knee-jerk reaction, is reported to have summoned his management to a crisis meeting.

A grapevine source who sat through the entire duration of the meeting disclosed that the top brass of the workforce attempted to fish out “enemies,” of the Mortey-led management and outline a more draconian measure to intimidate defiant workers.

As Akpadzie Mortey rave and rage, he reportedly ordered his subordinates at the said meeting to covertly place some of the workers under surveillance and ensure no information was leaked to the media, as he spread copies of the paper’s publication on his office desk.

After the rather lengthy discussions, some of the senior staff members were seen pasting the publication on their notice board apparently being ordered by their boss to do so.

Whiles management of the state security agency was locked up in the crunch meeting, the aggrieved workers were seen in quorums holding discussions over their suppression which has now been taken up by the media.

The latest to emerge from Mr. Akpadzie Mortey’s tyrannical running of the security agency, our findings revealed, is the reduction of the workers’ grades and the significant slash of their salaries.

According to the workers, no reasons have been given by management as to what contributed to the plummeting of their ranks.

“Our grades and salaries have been slashed drastically for several months and till now nothing has been done to rectify it. We don’t even know if it is an anomaly or a deliberate attempt to cow us into submission,” one of the workers told the paper on condition of anonymity.

Today Newspaper further found that many of the workers heaved a huge sigh of relief when its first publication of ‘EOCO BOSS ACCUSSED Of…’ came out last week Thursday, February 10, 2011.

“We became free and were very happy when Today newspaper published the first story as we were been held like prisoners of war by our management,” an elated worker confided in Today.

On what should be the next step of action, the workers urged the Ministry of Justice and Attorney-General to immediately relieve Mr. Akpadzie and his entire management, off their post stressing that anything short of this, will see the collapse of the anti-corruption institution.

They also gave the assurance that they are willing and prepared to ensure that the national purse is protected.

In 2009, for instance, the latter upon assumption of office, reportedly dismissed one Clement Fiti, when he defied his orders to abandon a scholarship he had secured from the Indian government to study ICT.

The scholarship package was facilitated by the erstwhile administration to allow workers of the organisation to go for refresher courses in India.

Today Newspaper understands that Mr. Mortey’s threats at the time compelled some of the workers who had been selected to leave for India to discard the programme for fear of losing their jobs.

The conduct of the executive secretary, according to insiders, angered the Indian High Commission to Ghana, who could not comprehend why the workers were being prevented from undertaking the course.