Minister Denies GHC2.5 million Mansion Story

The Minister of Information, John Akologo Tia, has vehemently denied media reports of him owning a massive 20-room mansion estimated at GHC2.5 million (25 billion old cedis) on a waterway in the Golf City Estates of Tema. The New Statesman Newspaper in its Wednesday May 25, edition reported that Hon John Tia was building a plush 20-room property on a waterway in the Gulf City Estates causing the residents of the Estates to live in constant danger of having their homes and belongings drowned in floods because of the decision by the Minister to put up the building on a waterway. The paper further reported that the neighbors have blamed the unusual flooding of the area in recent times on the fact that Mr. Tia's building has eaten into a part of a bridge, blocking the free flow of floodwater. However, in an interview with Citi News, Hon John Tia rubbished the report, describing it as the worst form of journalism ever to have happened in the country. According to him, the story is a fabrication that should not be taken serious by the people of Ghana. �This is one of the one of the worst unprofessional journalistic practice that I have seen in this country. If you look at the story apart of the exaggeration they never did any attempt to contact to verify this story. So what is their aim? For me, this is wildest publication that this newspaper has put out�. Hon John Tia urged Ghanaians to stop patronizing the New Statesman newspaper since, according to him, their only aim is to publish falsehood to the public. He added that the publication has been deliberately put out to dent his reputation. �I will urge Ghanaians not to patronize this newspaper because they are feeding us with falsehood; wasting everybody�s time, discouraging people from going into public office�everything about the story is complete falsehood it is a figment of their own imagination�. Hon John Tia explained that he acquired for a loan of 50,000 Ghana cedis from Fidelity Bank to acquire a 3-bedroom property at Baatsona for his family and not a 20 bedroom house at Tema as speculated by the publication. When Citi News visited the Minister's recently acquired three bedroom property, our reporter saw a humble edifice built on a small plot of about half the size of a full plot. The Minister for Information has implored the New Statesman Newspaper to immediately retract the publication and apologise to him with the same prominence given the story. Hon Tia has also threatened to drag the Statesman Newspaper to the National Media Commission if they fail to retract the false publication.