Ghana as a country has come to the realization of the importance of corruption as an impediment to the development of our country. For this reason governments over the years have waged anti corruption crusade about how they will be able to fight corruption in our dear nation Ghana. What freshly comes to mind is the slogan of probity and accountability by the NDC and zero tolerance for corruption by the NPP led by President Kufuor of which Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo was a key member.
As you will all recall, Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo gave a lecture some few days ago at the late vice president Aliu Mahama's memorial lectures of which he tried so hard to point accusing fingers at the NDC as being a corrupt government and the need for Ghanaians to give the NPP the chance to lead Nkrumah's Ghana that they have tried within the least of opportunity to destroy. Torfiakwa, never again will Ghanaians give them that chance.
Nana Akuffo Addo accusing the NDC government as being corrupt is extremely laughable and will fit as one of the biggest joke of the century. This is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black. My fellow Ghanaians, Wonders they say will never end! Nana Addo seem to have a short memory and thinks Ghanaians are the same and have forgotten how the NPP government institutionalized corruption to the extend that they are been called the father of corruption in Ghanaian politics.
We would take this opportunity to refresh the memory of Nana Addo and his followers about how they have looted Ghanaians mercilessly when they were in power.
A leopard may get wet falling into water, but its spots are eternal – a Ghanaian adage.
This proverb confirms the assertion that, apart from the name change of the leadership of the New Patriotic Party from President John Agyekum Kufuor, to now Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the flagbearer of the party, the value of corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence remains the same.
Nana Akufo-Addo was a key member of former President Kufuor's administration; in fact, he was one of the big wigs during the NPP's term in office that presided over the unprecedented corrupt dealings and practices in the history of Ghana, yet he did very little if not worse to erode the canker.
Below are some of the corrupt practices during the tenure of NPP government of which Nana Addo was a key member:
1. Hotel Kufuor
The Ghanaian can not forget in a haste a brazing act of public corruption involving John Addo Kufuor, the 41-year old then Chartered Accountant son of President John Agyekum Kufuor.
The Hotel was situated two doors away from the residence of Chief Kufuor's father, John Agyekum Kufuor.
The cost of US$3.5 million was funded by Prudential Bank, a Bank part-owned by SSNIT, a state-owned enterprise, and by the National Investment Bank, another state-owned Bank, and by the ECOWAS Regional Investment Bank, which advanced US$1 million to the Hotel.
At that time, President Kufuor was the Chairman of ECOWAS and Mr. J. S. Addo, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Prudential Bank, was President Kufuor's representative on the ERIB and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of ERIB. President Mahama is the ECOWAS Chairman and we have not heard any of such charges against him or his children.
Who guaranteed for the amount raised?
Can the ordinary Ghanaian have such an opportunity?
2. 'Epistle' According to Esseku
In 2005, the Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Harruna Esseku was caught on tape telling NPP supporters that, President Kufour was the chief recipient of kickbacks from contractors at the castle.
He lamented that unlike in the past when he could go to the castle and have his car boot stashed with kickback funds, President Kufour was at the time withholding those funds and this had affected his ability to provide resources for the running of the NPP.
For this revelation Mr. Esseku was held hostage in a hotel and prevented from attending the NPP delegates' conference at Legon. Yet this is a president who have campaigned on the winds of zero tolerance for corruption but had rather turned the office of the president into a den of thieves and Nana Addo who was a cabinet minister at the time saw nothing wrong with it yet he wants to be president.
3. Diversion of 6o billion cedis of tax payer's money to fund NPP propaganda machine
A 2009 audit report revealed that up to 60 billion Cedis of the tax payer's money taken from the TOR debt recovery levy, the HIPC etc. was used to fund a so called communication strategy which was only a euphemism for a conduit used to siphon state funds into the NPP campaign.The auditors could not find details of this strategy or how it was executed, except dubious payments to amorphous groups such as BLOW, PRIM, and FIRST RESPONDERS.
4. E.O Group Shares in Jubilee Field
While 25 million Ghanaians had to make do with only 13.6% stake in the Jubilee field. Two NPP top shots, George Owusu and Ambassador Edusei, both pals of President Kufuor, were given 3% shares which amounts to a colossal US$300 million.
It is instructive to note that in one of the Wikileaks cables President Kufour was quoted as having told a US senator that his interests in Ghana's oil are being coordinated by Mr. Kwabena Darko of Darko Farms.
When investigations were carried out into the EO group's affairs by Ghanaian authorities, it emerged that their company address was the same as the address of Darko Farms
The explanations given for how EO group came to own such a significant stake in the Jubilee field do not wash. We are told that they found Kosmos and brought them in to discover oil for Ghana.
It is strange that GNPC which was formed in 1983 and which has all the expertise one can think of in the oil industry could not find a partner to discover oil but it took a two-man company with no experience or track record in the oil industry to find a partner for us.
Even strange is the fact that the EO group was allowed to be part of the joint operating agreement signed among the partners in the jubilee field when they do not meet the basic requirements to be part of such a venture.
First they have no track record of having being part of such a venture in the past neither did they possess the financial capacity to make good their part of the cash calls which are necessary for the operation of the jubilee field.
As it turned out they were carried by Kosmos and seeing as Kosmos is no father Christmas, the conclusion that can be drawn was that the EO group shares was made a conditionality for giving Kosmos the exploration license.
5. GHANA @ 50
After spending a US$ 75 million dollars on Ghana's 50th birthday celebration, it emerged that Dr Wireko Brobey, Chief executive of the Ghana @50 secretariat made cash payments to supposed contractors and service providers in polythene bags without any supporting documentation.
6. Macmillan Textbook Printing Saga
Mr. Yaw Osafo Marfo, then Education Minister was embroiled in a dubious scandal involving the printing of some textbooks for Ghanaian schools leading to his sack by President Kufuor.
7. Sale Of Lands To NPP Ministers And Cronies
A recount of the sale of government bungalows and public lands to Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, President Kufour, Kwadwo Mpiani and other NPP Ministers and cronies points to evidence of corruption.
8. Bamba Gate
Alhaji Moctar Musah Bamba, former MP and former Deputy Minister for Presidential Affairs co-floated a company called 'Emirates Investments Limited' that used Presidential letterheads to guarantee private loans.
The company attempted defrauding a bank with a letterhead from the 'Office of the President' with a forged signature of the Minister for Private Sector Development purporting to give a Government of Ghana guarantee.
Emirates Investments Limited presented a fraudulent Canadian Bank draft for $93,000 out of which it enchased $30,875.35 but the draft bounced upon presentation. He was involved in a junk bond visa scam, which further exposed an incredible abuse of the Presidency.
He sponsored six NPP activists to an NPP function in Austria using fraudulently obtained Austrian visas and also attempted to obtain visas for another squad of 19 young people on a so-called business trip to Austria
9. Sekyi Hughes Loots his Bungalow
Former speaker of Parliament under the NPP, Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi Hughes when leaving his official bungalow looted it empty. He carried along all the curtains, furniture and fixtures in the house. Some media reports had it that Mr. Sekyi Hughes even took away flower pots and spoons.
10. Dr Agambilla Slams NPP for Engaging in Procurement Politics
Former deputy finance minister under the NPP, Dr Gheysika Agambilla described the NPP's approach to politics and governance as procurement politics in a widely circulated book he wrote after he left office.
Dr Agambilla also told American officials that there was widespread corruption in the Kufour regime especially in the forestry sector. This was contained in the leaked US diplomatic cables.
11. Thomas Broni Gate
The Deputy Minister of lands and forestry in the Kufour regime, Thomas Broni, seduced the wife of a financier of his own party-NPP, Martha Nkrumah, and setting her up in business with ¢500 million in kind of public money from the state-owned GNPA, an allegation made by no less a person than the henpecked husband of the lady, Tony Osei Tutu.
12. Kufour's House Renovation
In 2001, President Kufuor's private residence was renovated at a cost of 40 million cedis. It was claimed later by NPP government officials that the renovation was financed by a farmer named Mr. Marfo.
It is instructive to note that the same Mr. Marfo was flown abroad for medical treatment at the expense of the tax payer. How is it that a farmer who was rich enough to pay for the renovation of the residence of the President needed the tax payer's money to seek medical treatment or was it a case of one good turn deserves another?
13. International Students hostel Appropriation
The former International Students Hostel at the Airport City, which was initially allocated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was re-zoned for residential development by the government in 2007, and sold to functionaries and cronies of the NPP for GH¢2O,OOO or GH¢15,000 per plot.
14. Phantom VRA Plant
Dr. Charles Yves Wereko Brobby, as Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority, got the VRA to lease a national electricity back-up power plant called the "Strategic Reserve Plant" at Tema, at a cost of US$6 million.
He paid a monthly rent for it until the cost of the plant came to US$30 million, but the Plant never worked until all the 5 units were secretly returned to their owners; ¢14 billion (US$ 1.7 million) penalties was paid by the VRA for not lifting crude oil on schedule when the VRA had not been invoiced for payment.
He spent a whopping US$700,000 on publicity and advertisements alone within a one-year period; He paid a local Public Relations firm up to ¢300 million just to produce VRA's in-house newsletter which over the years had been produced by regular Public Relations staff of the VRA. He willfully and inexplicably changed a VRA contract award to a Company from ¢51 million to US$51 thousand
15. Professor Kassim Kassanga Harmattan Project
Professor Kassim Kassanga, former Minister of Lands and Forestry secretly re-awarded 42 Timber Utilisation Contracts from the NDC era that the NPP Government had cancelled to cronies and favorites of the NPP in gross violation of the principles of transparency, among which beneficiaries was Mrs. Comfort Wereko-Brobbey, President Kufuor's sister whose husband was a member of the Forestry Commission Board and who was given 89 square kilometres of the Asukese Forest Reserve.
He took ¢3 billion belonging to the Forest Plantation Development Fund without the knowledge of the Board of Directors of the Fund, used it to import mango seedlings from Burkina Faso for planting to create forests, which seedlings arrived during the harmattan season resulting in the wilting away of all of them and therefore rendering the ¢3 billion a total financial loss to the state.
16. Visa Fraud
Peter Kwaku Amoabeng, former NPP MP for Lower West Akim fraudulently attempted to obtain an Austrian visa for a woman and two children who he falsely represented as his wife and children respectively, and in the process committed the offences of fraud by false pretences, forgery, perjury, impersonation and deceit of public officer
17. Conflict of Interest
Mr. Wilson, former DCE for Mfantesman awarded an Assembly contract to himself. In the course of execution of the contract, the building on which the workmen were working collapsed.
As a result of the collapse, three persons died and seven were seriously injured. He was merely removed from office.
18. Anane's Bed Warming Saga
The Minister of Health under President Kufuor's presidency, Dr. Richard Anane attending an international AIDS Conference, had raw sex with a foreign lady, had a baby with the lady, and transferring as much as US$100, 000 to the said lady in the USA, an allegation made by no less a person than the very same lady concubine, Alexandra O'Brien, herself.
20. Popular Cocaine Trade:
Even more disturbing was the linkage of government and public officials to cocaine trading and smuggling. A significant amounts of 77 parcels of cocaine, vanished from police surveillance
An NPP parliamentarian, Eric Amoateng, went to jail, and is now serving a prison sentence in the US for heroin trafficking. Amoateng was arrested in 2005 for smuggling 136lbs of heroin into Newark airport. He was jailed in 2007 by a US court after resigning his seat but enjoyed significant support from fellow NPP MPs.
21. The Infamous Dzorwulu Women.
Under Nana Akufo-Addo's watch as the Attorney General, three NPP women from Dzorwulu, were caught trying to smuggle narcotics out of the country. The dockets of the three narcotic women got lost under mysterious circumstances.
23. Raymond Amankwah's Diplomatic Passport
Raymond Kwame Amankwah, who is well known in the International Community as a hard core drug baron was arrested and sentenced to a 14-year prison term at the Provisional Detention Centre at Caucaia in Brazil for drug trafficking.
But according to the Daily Graphic's front page lead story of Monday February 13, 2012, when Amankwah was arrested by the Brazilian authorities he was holding a Ghanaian Diplomatic Passport which was issued to him at the time that Akufo-Addo was Ghana's Foreign Minister.
Some contracts were also awarded to companies that DID NOT EXIST at the time of the award of the contracts, E.G. The NPP gave a contract to a non-existent company called Dekoom Ventures to supply kitchen inputs to the school Feeding Programme on 16th January 2006, however on 16th January, Dekoom Ventures was NOT a registered company- Yes, that was Nana Addo's NPP for you.
By December 2006, the NPP had paid more than GH¢5.7 billion to companies that had no Business Registration Certificates and some of these companies are as follows;
1. Supernatural Ventures
2. Danving Enterprise
3. F&A Investments
4. Wendy Rose Enterprise
5. Maami Leak Enterprise
6. Royal Choice
7. Chakan Enterprise
Two companies that were awarded contracts had the same VAT invoice number that meant that it was a typical 419 scam.
Look at this;
Invoice Date Name Of Company Invoice Number Amount GH¢
6th April 2006 Godish Enterprise 10803905 GH¢25,245.00
5th July 2006 Kaldal Ltd. 10803905 GH¢71,500.00
On 10th February 2011, was the “Ghanaian Times” banner head line publication thus “Ex-Minister's wife secured contract by fake pretence? The Auditor-General's report of 2005 on what happened at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when Nana Akuffo Addo was Foreign Minister. US$1446, 396 Cash was withdrawn from the Ministry's Special Accounts of Seven Embassies without the knowledge of the Controller and Accountant General and yet he told Ghanaians that he had never been cited for corruption- Is such a man trust worthy?
Ladies and Gentlemen, even in opposition the NPP is still engaging in corruption, the chairman of the NPP Mr. Paul Afoko has accused Mr. Opare Hammond the man in charge of finance for misappropriation of funds on live television. How can we can we trust them.
The NDC government is very committed to fighting the canker of corruption in Ghana, that is why today you will hear some NDC government official facing trial. An example is in the GYEEDA case where an NDC MP is facing trial and his own colleague MP from the same party is serving as a prosecuting witness, and funds that have been misappropriated asked to be paid. No doubt daily graphic reported that GHC 14.5 million has been paid. Unlike the NPP they were not able to prosecute anyone neither are they able to retrieve the millions of the tax payer's money The only thing President Kuffour said was that he cant prosecute his party officials because that will collapse his government and Nana Addo was a cabinet minister in that government.
The NDC government as a result of fighting corruption have being able to clean the public payroll system of which a lot of ghost names have been removed as a result of the introduction of the GIFMIS programme which is serving our country millions of cedis.
The National service scheme that was full of corruption over the years have took the NDC government to sanitize the system and now, service personnel are going to be paid through a biometric system which will serve our dear country millions of cedis.
With the above unprecedented corrupt practices of the NPP, it is however not surprising that former President Kufuor made that infamous declaration that corruption “was as old as Adam” and that on a daily basis he and his officials are tempted with all manner of things including the proverbial apple of the Garden of Eden.
On the issue of which party has the political will to fight corruption and uproot its root cause, Ghanaians will be the better judges.
Kafui Agbleze (Regional Propaganda Secretary)
Chester Ben Ati (Deputy Regional Propaganda Sec)
Members:
Joseph Amevo, Hope Nyavedzi , Emmanueul Ashigbi, Francis N. Asamani, Harrison Akadi, Evans Asiwome, Edward Anim, Del-Bright, Courage Dei-Zanga, Ernest Kafui Tsetse.
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