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03.06.2009 NDC

NDC group wants Nana Addo, Prof. Kasanga prosecuted

03.06.2009 LISTEN
By Issah Alhassan, Kumasi - Ghanaian Chronicle

A KUMASI-BASED NDC Youth group, which calls itself Organized Youth of the National Democratic Congress, has called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of the former Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo and ex-Minister for Lands and Forestry, Prof. Kassim Kasanga, for their individual actions which led to the loss of billions of cedis during their tenure as Ministers.

The group said certain actions and inactions by the two personalities and others alike, during their roles as Ministers, which allegedly resulted in the state incurring loses, and as such must not be allowed to escape the long arms of justice and accountability.

Speaking at a press conference in Kumasi on Friday May 29, 2009, the Spokesperson of the group, Mr. Joseph Yamin stated that the former NPP Presidential candidate's decision to keep two state vehicles for more than one year after resigning as the Foreign Minister to pursue his presidential ambition and thus rendering the vehicles worn out and which was repaired by the state, amounting to causing financial loss to the state.

The group's Spokesperson was of the view that since Nana Addo had the guts to lambast the government for retrieving vehicles belonging to the state from past Ministers, then he should provide answers to the state for needlessly taking possession of state vehicles at a time he was not working for the state.

Turning to Prof. Kassim Kasanga, Mr. Yamin said the former Lands and Forestry Minister must be made to respond to questions concerning his failure to undertake the mango plantation project in the Northern Region, after allegedly spending about ¢5 billion to import seedlings into the country.

He noted that if some past Ministers of the then NDC government under ex-President Rawlings were arrested and subsequently incarcerated for implementing certain policies which did not benefit them financially as individuals, then the two Ministers and other former government appointees caught in the same mess are equally liable for prosecution, adding that “By ex-President Kufuor and late Justice Afreh's assertions, these Ministers and their colleagues are more than prone to prosecution.”

To ensure fairness in the prosecution of these former Ministers, the group pleaded with the Judicial Council to make sure the best judges by NPP standards, such as Justice Henrietta Abban is appointed to be among the panel to preside over the case, to disabuse the minds of the opposition about any perceived injustice.

The Organized Youth of the NDC further reacted to a threat issued by the NPP foot-soldiers in the Ashanti Region, warning of a possible showdown with the NDC over alleged harassment of its members.

According to the group, their colleagues on the other side of the political divide had threatened to engage the ruling party in physical exchanges and had allegedly vowed to inflict acid and cutlass wounds on innocent porters in Kumasi, as way of punishing the core NDC supporters.

The NDC youth group, however, described the threats as hogwash and an attempt by the NPP foot-soldiers to cover-up for some members of the past government after they were exposed for looting state properties and embezzling public funds.

The group also challenged the opposition to publicly come out and produce evidence to the effect that members of their party in the Ashanti Region were being harassed and intimidated, stressing that if the ruling party was to retaliate for what the NPP did to its members in 2001 and 2004, the region would have been a hell for some of them to stay in.

“Indeed, the NPP foot-soldiers must be thankful of the fact that Ghana now has a very God-fearing leader in the person of Prof John Evans Atta Mills, who has no penchant for criminal retaliation, unlike ex-President Kufuor and Nana Akufo Addo who engaged the services of Action troopers and Militants within the NPP to cause mayhem,” the NDC group noted.

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