Ghana Sacks Minister, Victoria Hammah, Over $1m Claim

Victoria Hammah

While Nigeria is going in circles about Minister Stella Oduah who is entangled in an embarrassing corruption maze, reports from Ghana say that Victoria Hammah, the country’s Deputy Communications Minister, has been fired allegedly for saying on audio tape she would not quit politics until she has made $1m.

On the tape, which is suspected to have been made by her driver, she is quoted as saying, "If you have money then you can control people."

Ms. Hannah has been in controversy before, after saying last August there was pressure on her to steal public money because people believed that, being a Minister, she was rich.

According to the Ghanaweb news site, she further said, “Corrupt politicians are the reflection of [a] corrupt society!"

Ms. Hannah was fired just one day after the tape which contains her $1m-making ambition went viral on social media.  It was also played on a local radio station.

In Nigeria, as reported by SaharaReporters on Thursday night, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Aviation which probed the allegations of fraud against Ms. Oduah refuted every single one of her claim, describing them as false or unsupported by the evidence.

Still, the Minister, a personal friend and major 2011 campaign supporter of President Goodluck Jonathan, remains in office.

Before his departure for Israel on October 23, Mr. Jonathan set up a three-man panel to probe the allegations against Ms. Oduah, giving it two weeks to report.

But for the first week he then travelled with a member of the panel, as well as the Minister whom he was supposed to have been investigating.

The panel is now illegally several days behind its deadline without an extension, and Mrs. Oduah remains in office.