Hannah Tetteh apologizes to Speaker of Parliament over WikiLeaks comments

Ms Hannah Tetteh, the Minister for Trade and Industry, has apologised to the Speaker of Parliament, Mrs Joyce Bamford-Addo over comments attributed to her in the US cables published by the whistle-blower website, WikiLeaks.

The Minister was cited in the leaked cable published in August 2011 telling a US Embassy official that the choice of Justice Joyce Bamford Addo as the Speaker was purely because, among other things “she is seen as someone who would take orders and be malleable to party discipline.”

Ms Tetteh made the apology at the end of her presentation at the ‘Meet-The-Press’ briefing in Accra, according to the Ghana News Agency report November 1, 2011. She expressed her apologies to those affected by the attributions purported to have been made by her in the WikiLeaks cables.

“I wish to use this platform to apologize to the Speaker of Parliament, Parliament itself and all those libelled, embarrassed or affected as a result of the words attributed to me in the WikiLeaks,” the GNA quoted Ms Tetteh as saying though she refrained from going into details of her conversation with the US official.

She described the situation as unfortunate.

By Ekow Quandzie