Repeal law on causing financial loss to state - Obed Asamoah

Dr. Yao Obed Asamoah, Founder of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), says the law on causing financial loss to the state is bad and should be repealed.

He said the way and manner in which the law was applied and interpreted by the Judiciary posed serious challenges to the country's democratic development.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the Accra Polytechnic branch of the Tertiary Education Students Forum (TESFORD) of the DFP in Accra last week.

He queried, "Can you believe it? Even the National Democratic Congress whose elements are paying the price of a bad law Causing financial loss to the state that they parented are against its repeal."

He said it was obvious to him that they wanted the opportunity to apply it to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) if they came to power.

He said yesterday it was the Preventive Detention, Protective Custody and the likes which were the instruments of persecution but today it is the law on causing financial loss to the state.

"I am not convinced that the country is awake to the danger of political vendetta posed by that law, the law is bad, at least in the manner in which it has been interpreted and applied by the courts."

He said the country needed not to wait for the NDC to show how badly they would want to apply it before we woke up to the danger.

He said many politicians were placing the attainment of power over and above the pursuit of principles.

He said some politicians were prepared to condone and connive in doing the wrong things if that would enable them to achieve or bask in the glory of power.
The veteran politician said politics in the country is plagued by many ills.

He said insults, threats, vilification, political vendetta and tribalism threatened the survival of the nation and "I don't think there is sufficient appreciation of the danger we face".

"Today, people gloss over the planned assassination of some of us only for speaking our minds," Dr Asamoah stated.

He said some might view the confrontation between the NPP and the NDC as exciting, but cautioned that there were inherent dangers, and that the insults, lies, vilification and threats threatened to tear the country apart.

"That is not good because it has the effect of driving good people away from politics" and mediocrity is inflicted upon the country, he said.

He said if the country failed to hold in check the greed of some members of the political and business communities, Ghana would be no different from all those countries whose oil wealth had been more of a curse than a blessing.

"The DFP says that this is the time to sweep aside the old order and start afresh with a new crop of leadership and a new vision" Dr Asamaoh stated.

The flag bearer of the party, Mr Emmanuel Ansah Antwi, said if Ghana was to make progress then it had to rely on science and technology.

He said graduates from the polytechnics should be well equipped to push Ghana's development agenda forward.

"We need Science and Technology to be able to prosecute the Green Revolution we intend to launch when the DFP wins power."

The General Secretary of the DFP, Mr Bede Zeideng, described TESFORD as representing the intellectual wing of the party, and that it was important for them to understand issues by becoming well informed in order to educate the electorate on the choices to make during elections.

He called on them to act as party agents, and to recruit others to assist in monitoring political and business communities the forth coming elections.

He said this would ensure that '"we don't have complaints about rigging and other electoral malpractices".

The President of the association, Mr Asamoah Kudzu, said students who were leaving the university could not find jobs, and that the DFP would create decent jobs and provide adequate remuneration.