Former presidential candidate of the All People’s Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga, has accused the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) of pursuing an agenda to destroy people’s reputations.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday, August 18, Ayariga questioned the motives behind GTEC’s handling of its correspondence with him, insisting that the Commission’s actions were inconsistent and damaging.

“So in that letter, they said, ‘in the light of your inability to provide the required document, you are hereby directed to immediately cease the use of the title Dr, and additionally, you must provide verifiable evidence that the title has been removed from all platforms, including, but not limited to, official social institutions’.

"You see clearly, this is the first letter they are writing to me, and you are writing a letter asking me to provide ABC and D. In the same letter, you are asking me to stop using A, B, C and D. What is the essence of that letter?” he asked.

Mr Ayariga insisted that, contrary to GTEC’s claims, he had never been properly served with any official correspondence.

“And as we speak today, let me be very honest and clear to you, I have not received the letter from GTEC to date. Until today, there has been no evidence of them serving me a letter.

"I don’t have a letter from GTEC, as we speak, and if you want, put them on the phone to prove to you that they have given me a letter. So you see, there’s some kind of an agenda to destroy people’s reputation.”

He cautioned that destroying reputations is a dangerous path for state institutions to take, stressing the importance of accountability in their operations.

“And when you are destroying people’s reputation, you have to be very careful, because it is very difficult to build a reputation. So you must ask questions like an institution, a proper institution,” Mr Ayariga said.

He further challenged GTEC’s posture, describing it as overreaching and unwarranted.

“So you write to us, you write to Dr, and then we are requesting him to do ABC. You give him timelines... 'We are giving you from this day...' See, I’m not your worker. I have not come to your office, and I’ve submitted a CV, whereby you are in a rush to verify my CV, to see whether I am qualified to get that job or not,” he argued.