Ameyaw-Akumfi demands apology

Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi

CREDIBLE INFORMATION reaching DAILY GUIDE indicates that Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, former Minister for Harbours and Railways,  is bracing up to haul all his defamers to the law court to halt his persecution.

Lawyers for Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, DAILY GUIDE has learnt, are however as a first step demanding an unqualified apology and proof of evidence from various newspapers that are publishing injurious falsehood against the former minister; failure of which he would be compelled to initiate legal action.

Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, who is also the Member of Parliament for Techiman North, DAILY GUIDE gathered, has decided to act, following wanton defamation of his persona in publications by people believed to be political hot-heads within the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) trying to criminalize the works of all former ministers.

The persecution of Ameyaw-Akumfi, this paper has further gleaned, is part of a grand design to witch-hunt former government officials and their close associates for possible prosecution by the new administration, in order to decimate the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Already, former minister for Presidential Affairs and Chief of Staff, Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani; Frank Agyekum, former Deputy Minister for Information; Akwasi Osei-Adjei, former Minister for Foreign Affairs; Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, former minister of state at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and Sammy Crabbe, Businessman and Greater Accra Regional Chairman of NPP, have been dragged to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to answer questions pertaining to their actions as ministers or being victimized in newspaper publications for taking decisions that were in the interest of the nation.

In the case of Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, he has been accused in newspapers believed to sympathetic to the ruling NDC, that he had connived with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to divert monies meant for the provision of water to acquire Diesel Multiple Units (DMU) or coaches for the Railways.

However, sources close to the former minister have informed DAILY GUIDE during inquiry on the matter that their associate had no hand in deciding the funds that should be used to purchase the coaches.

They explained that following the signing of a contract between Ghana Railway Company Limited and Amandi Holding Limited on December 22, 2006, Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi wrote a letter to government requesting for the release of funds for the manufacture of the coaches.

According to them, the Ministry of Finance promised to finance the purchase from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) funds, adding that the claim by newspaper publications that the former minister had used money meant for water was deceitful and being perpetuated to indict him.  

According to information reaching DAILY GUIDE, Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi has also debunked the claim by newspaper publications that he told Joy FM, a private radio station, that money used for the procurement of the coaches was meant for provision of water but his outfit had to lobby the then Minister of Finance to divert the funds for the coaches.  

A copy of the contract in this paper's possession, had spelt out that payment for the coaches was to be made in three tranches of 20 per cent for each of the first two installments and the 60 per cent upon submissions of all shipping documents.

DAILY GUIDE has gathered that the Ministry of Finance, through its presentation on the implementation of the 2007 budget, indicated that by the middle of 2008, the second 20% of the total payment had been paid, leaving the final installment of 60%, amounting to $13.167million.

It has been established that by the end of President John Agyekum Kufuor's tenure of office, the 40% of the total cost of $21.77million had been made while the remaining the 60% was paid in May this year by President Mills' administration.

Consequent to the payment of the full amount, DAILY GUIDE has been informed that the coaches have arrived but have been locked up in Tema, with the claim that there are no railway tracks for them to be used.

This act, according to the associates of Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, is a ploy to indict the former minister of causing financial loss to the state, to fall in line with the ruling NDC's agenda to prosecute ministers of the former administration for wrongdoing.

Another allegation leveled against Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi by a newspaper publication was that he had used a loan of $1million meant for payment of salaries of railway workers to pay properties belonging to the company.

Contrary to the allegation, DAILY GUIDE has gathered that somewhere around 2007, the Railways Company was in distress, defaulting in payment of workers' salaries for about five months.

Consequently, Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, then Minister of Harbours & Railways, our sources say, wrote to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) to assist the Railways Company.

GPHA acceded to the request and granted a loan of $1million, which was lodged direct into the Railways Company's account.

DAILY GUIDE further gleaned that GPHA, in 2008, contacted the Railways Company, expressing interest in some of its houses which it wanted to divest to pay the loan.

Unfortunately, when the GPHA inspected the houses, it saw that they could not pay for the loan and therefore did not acquire the properties.  

Indeed, sources at the Railways Company have informed DAILY GUIDE that the company is still indebted to GPHA and that Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi had nothing to do with the financial transaction between the two parties.   

By Awudu Mahama