Ghana ambassador recalled over gambling fiasco in Japan

edmondGhana’s Ambassador to Japan Edmund Kofi Agbenutse Deh, hasn’t had a good couple of weeks and things are fixing to get even worse now that he’s been recalled by his home country to explain the mess the embassy has found itself in the middle of in Japan.

If unknowingly letting out of part of a property belonging to the mission to a gang of Japanese gamblers is bad enough, recent reports that Deh didn’t do any background checks on the renters before signing off on the transaction has caused a major international incident among Ghanians living in the Asian country. That’s not exactly the kind of responsibility you want hanging around your neck when you’re called home to explain exactly what happened.

But that’s what the ambassador is facing after Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Thomas Kwesi Quartey confirmed to the Daily Graphic that the ambassador was on his way home to face the music. “We need to know what went on,” Quartey added in a tone that we can only imagine spell more trouble for the embattled Deh.

Quartey did stop short of pointing the blame in the ambassador’s direction, opting only to say that interviewing Deh would help facilitate the completion of the investigation. Deh’s predecessor, William Mensah Brandful, was already interviewed regarding his involvement in the issue because if we want to be fair to the current envoy, it was Brandful who first signed off on renting the Ghanian property to these illegal Japanese gamblers.

The arrest of 10 Japanese individuals stemming from operating an illegal gambling ring blew open the news that has caused massive unrest for Ghanians living in the Japanese capital of Tokyo. Law enforcement officials in Tokyo discovered after the arrest that the property this illegal gambling ring was using to run its business belonged to the Ghanian embassy and was leased in the name of Brandful, dragging more people into a mess that still provides little answers to a whole lot of questions.

Hopefully, Ambassador Deh can provide some of those answers now that he’s touched down in Ghana. If anything, it should be the fastest way to get this matter resolved and put the issue to bed because, well, it’s already caused a lot of embarrassment for people who had nothing to do with it in the first place.