Eight Sacked @ BNI

As Explosive Probe Exposes Rot, Leaks And Security Breaches

By Stanley Assor

The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Ghana’s elite internal intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, is in the throes of a clandestine purge and the reason, sources say, is far more explosive than the sackings themselves.

At least eight personnel have been quietly expelled from the Bureau, with up to sixteen officers indicted for various anti-agency offences and at least one demoted, according to multiple sources who spoke to The New Republic on condition of anonymity.

But the disciplinary actions, carried out in secrecy, are merely the tip of a festering iceberg. The real story, which the Bureau’s top brass headed by Director-General Charles Kipo would rather bury, is that the BNI has degenerated into what insiders describe as a “dunghill of pure slop.”

The allegations are staggering in both scope and gravity.

Serious dereliction of duty. Major security compromises. Porous counter-intelligence operations so alarming that international collaborative agencies including the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are rethinking intelligence-sharing with Ghana’s premier spy outfit.

According to sources, some BNI personnel are deliberately sabotaging corruption investigations by leaking sensitive information to suspects under probe. Others have allegedly helped smuggle drugs into cells for inmates in BNI custody.

In perhaps the most damning revelation, personnel in charge of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) camera operations have allegedly been deliberately tampering with recordings to create missing links in security monitoring effectively blinding the agency to its own internal misconduct.

The rot has not gone unnoticed by the bureau’s security and intelligence partners. Sources report that the FBI has withdrawn several suspects it had kept in BNI custody, citing deep mistrust of the Bureau’s ability to securely hold detainees.

For high-profile, politically exposed corruption suspects, BNI custody has reportedly become less a detention facility and more a holiday resort.

Multiple sources describe a system where wealthy and connected suspects are allowed to live pampered lives in their cells complete with contraband comforts and unauthorised liberties.

Personnel on computer duties have been accused of collecting bribes from suspects and escorting them to brothels for sex with prostitutes before returning them to their cells under the cover of darkness.

In one particularly brazen scheme, officers allegedly collect bribes to the tune of GHC20,000 from relatives of high-profile suspects to arrange phone calls to unauthorised persons on request.

It was against this backdrop of systemic rot that Kipo’s top brass finally attempted some disciplinary action.

Eight officers were recently indicted for allowing suspects access to mobile phones while in BNI cells to communicate with spouses, lawyers and political party executives. Six of them have since been dismissed after their actions compromised investigations including probes involving high-profile ORAL cases.

Two personnel in charge of monitoring the CCTV system were dismissed for compromising the system, while one of the interdicted officers has been demoted.

But the sackings raise a far more uncomfortable question: if sixteen officers were indicted and eight dismissed, how many more remain embedded within the Bureau, still leaking, still smuggling, still sabotaging?

And why, in a country where corruption scandals routinely dominate headlines, has the BNI’s own internal rot been kept so tightly under wraps?

The New Republic understands that more revelations are imminent.

For now, the Bureau’s top brass is tight-lipped. But sources within the intelligence community warn that the BNI’s credibility both at home and abroad hangs by a thread if unpurged.

More anon.