Law & Leadership Colloquium with Pastor Tommy: Audit Service’s transpositional error & Fourth Estate’s reputation: A case worth suing?

The Fourth Estate project, is ideally a brilliant idea, which moves civil society’s participation in our society’s forward movement, from just the sharing of brilliant ideas, concepts of change and development perspectives, to actually impacting our motherland and our national conversation and this time, with realistic and diligent investigative reports, that unearth the spoils and vices of individuals and institutions in our society, and brings them to the fore.

The project, which according to its website, is a non-profit, public interest and accountability investigative journalism project of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), with the sole aim, to promote independent and critical research-based journalism that holds those in power answerable to the people they govern, may well have suffered its greatest challenge ever.

Well few days back, in a post which has since been deleted on their Facebook account, the Fourth Estate in preparing the hearts and minds of its eager followers, had shared how they were on the verge of breaking news on what their ever-looking and checking eyes had identified.

According to that viral teaser, it would unveil how a state institution had paid GHS 427 million to just one person, in unearned salaries between January 2023 and June 2025 and by the next day, did indeed follow up with full expose, typical of them.

Whereas this has come to be known as largely impossible to do, per the set-limits to which a governmental institution can pay out, as salary to an individual elucidates two common thoughts, the first being The Fourth Estates potentially obsessed view of how corrupt our system is and secondly, its yeoman heroic efforts, that can best be described as the nation’s purse only savior. Clearly, a task, too big to be borne by them alone.

In a country, where the Cedi rate is faring well to the dollar recently, at least, something that does not happen so often in our part of the world, and yet, people are eager to overcome the low standards of living and are equally vigilant of who gets to spend Ghana’s meagre resources, the Fourth Estate’s report caught on like fire, especially when it basically suggested that, Mr. Frank Oliver Kpodo, had indeed received an average of more than GH¢14 million monthly, for work, he had not done.

The commentaries were coming in sharp and it must have felt like, catching the thief in the market finally, and instant justice was about to be meted out to the culprit, for those on social media, as many took out their phones and literally called out the individual and our fledging governmental institutions as corrupt and deranged literally, to have seen this level of rot persist.

Many were not merciful, as though, they were the final adjudicators on this case and their judgement was that swift, thankfully, to the very choice of words and phrases by the Forth Estate, who are expert communicators and knew just how to attract the minds and emotions of its readers with the social media announcement.

The Fourth Estate has since deleted these two posts (the teaser and their real viral story) and the only semblance of this viral story, there is, at least on their Facebook page, is technically an apology, from the Audit Service rather and not from them, who may have amplified the supposed transpositional error.

In fact, they do not take any responsibility whatsoever in all this, as this apology referred to, asserts that, “following the Forth Estate’s publication on the latest Auditor0Geberal report on nationwide payroll irregularities, the Audit Service now says the GHS 427 million attributed to Mr. Frank Oliver Kpodo, a former Director of Procurement at the Ministry of Defence was a transpositional error.”

Interestingly, in their concluding paragraph however, they state therefore that, “following the development and the corrections made by the Auditor General in its Audit report, which formed the basis of the original story by The Fourth Estate, we have taken down the original publication,” and in my candid opinion, this is clearly disingenuous and especially when such stories, advances their brand and would have made it to their “our impact,” page on their website, if not for this error, they should have accepted some responsibility.

But it is understandable, because, from my basic appreciation of the nuances of defamation and negligence suits, that may well make them potentially liable, in having admit equally to same. But from the perspective of a consumer of the Forth Estate’s work, which I think, they have been brilliant at all this, unravelling many instances of abuse of power and the rot that follows, creating instances of corrupt practices, I think that, the Audit Service’s transpositional errors, were also a reflection of the Fourth Estate’s own errors, amplified.

While transposition errors are common, it must seem shocking to us, a nation, that must endeavour to be excellent and demand proper accountability from its public officials that, this should be most effectively preventable, most especially ion the part of the Audit Service, if they can institute certain basic practices such as always reviewing entries before finalizing them, especially for such large transactions, the utilization of Automated Systems with error-checking capabilities to reduce such manual and fatal mistakes, ensure segregation of duties by assigning different individuals for data entry and review processes to minimize the risk of errors and lastly, by providing constant training of staff on common data entry mistakes and error detection techniques.

Fast forward, Prince Ganaku, lawyer for Frank Oliver Kpodo, had described the fallout as deeply damaging, saying his client’s reputation has been severely affected despite his subsequent exoneration and however, failed at declaring their intent to sue for defamation, alleging his client was yet to consider same.

However, The Fourth Estate lawyers, the renowned A-Partners @ Law, in a signed statement by the respected Lawyer Samson Anyenini in its timely and highly strategic response to the whole saga, sought to douse the matters, they were seised with, as the press release, tackled the raised issues under these four thematic topics: the principle of official reliance and journalistic duty, due diligence and the reality of the correction, ethical remediation and legal immunity and the broader mandate of public accountability.

What struck me and many others however was a statement in the Press Release, that asserted that, “Prior to publication, The Fourth Estate observed rigorous due diligence by engaging reliable sources within the Audit Service … regardless that it had no such obligation of further verification.”

In a sighted post, Lawyer Samson Anyenini has shared how “such mistakes and errors are part of human conduct and where they occur, retractions and apologies are issued and publications are taken down, as the responsible path and not a case of failure of verification,” however, a critical look at real instances surrounding same, such as the contacting of the man at the center of the scandal, who was willing to provide evidence, contrary to what was projected in the audit report, just under 24hours to their publication, may well have given cause, to the accusations of Fourth Estate’s grossly unfair and the need to reconsider their approach.

Reference has been made to the Reynolds v. Times Newspaper case, under defamation, which is suggestive that, when it comes to matters of public interest, such as what this case seemed to be clothed with, even if the information is proven to be inaccurate, a journalist or media outlet is protected from defamation liability as long they are able to prove that, they acted fairly and reasonably, clearly aimed at responsible journalism.

Ganaku, Lawyer for Mr. Oliver Kpodo, if his client decides to push for a claim of defamation, will have the arduous task of proving that, The Fourth Estate acted unfairly and unreasonably then, as he has already reiterated his finding fault with the framing of the very original report by The Fourth Estate, as he argues that it created a strong impression of guilt from the outset and asserts also that, this approach contributed significantly to the scale of the backlash his client faced, as many readers formed conclusions before seeing his response.

“The article began by making firm statements suggesting he had done this, and then invited expert opinions based on that assumption,” he said. “It was only towards the end that it mentioned he had expressed surprise and concern, without stating that he had payslips and was willing to provide them to clear his name,” Lawyer Ganaku had said.

Clearly, per the Reynolds rule established, upon two conditions though, Mr. Oliver Kpodo’s willingness to sue and upon the his lawyers potential ability to prove beyond doubt to the bench that, The Fourth Estate may have not shown good faith, in specifically the areas of fairness and reasonableness in relation to their professional conduct, the Fourth Estate may be potentially liable to the charges.

One can say that, however it plays out, a challenge of this by Mr. Chris Kpodo, will in the long run, procure for the practice of journalism, some higher standards and a clarion call to its practitioners that, the very legal regime is there to not just assist it in the furtherance of their all important role in governance and society’s progress but even more, to act as a check and balance on its operations, just so, people and the public policy and interest dimension of their work’s impact, is well measured and positively impactful rather.

In concluding, to the ever versatile Forth Estate and their desire to flag the rot, that has impeded our developmental progress as a country, keep at it, this may have shaked some eye brows about the way you do your work, especially around working with such reports but I believe that, lessons have been learnt in-house and the way forward is brighter for our nation’s progress. Unto your next investigative reports, we can’t wait.

Pastor Tommy Emmanuel O’Dell is a  UGSoL LLB Student, Ordained Pastor and Certified Counsellor. ([email protected])

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