The son of the owner of an airport land has recalled how he paid the Ghana police a huge sum of money with the hope that it would help them fight his case for him and get some ‘criminals’ away from his property, but nothing was done.
Richard Eshun explained that, having been terrorised by some persons who had repeatedly come to the Airport Residential Area property under the guise of taking over the property, he was lucky when the police arrested some of the guys one day.
“Very often, when the police came here, the guys had done damage and left. On one particular instance, they were able to arrest a total of about 8 people on the property, doing this damage. We were all taken to the Airport Police Station, where I gave my statement. So, I was a complainant,” he explained.
Narrating the story on GhanaWeb TV’s SayItLoud with Etsey Atisu, the 68-year-old Richard Eshun said that even though he took the case to court, he had to make a huge monetary ‘contribution’ to the police to help prosecute his matter.
“They were interviewed, and statements were taken from them. The police did nothing with that information. More interesting is this: even as a complainant, we were asked to pay money – a lot of money… GH¢30,000,” he explained.
The host of the program then had the following brief interaction with him on the back of this.
Etsey: So, you paid this to who?
Richard: By that, you mean whose hands did I put it in?
Etsey: Well, did you give this to the police?
Richard: Yes, to the police
Etsey: Was there any official documentation to show that you’re paying this amount for such and such?
Richard: Ur, no.
Etsey: But what was the money for?
Richard: The understanding me and my lawyer had was that, to prosecute the case, or do whatever had to be done, we needed to make that contribution. However, having made that contribution, we left the police station only to find out that the people were released that same night, maybe they made a bigger contribution. I don’t know.
Etsey: Well, you call this a contribution. More or less a mild way of calling this. Was this some form of a bribe? A contribution? How is that a contribution, and to what cause?
