Mills has been most negligent in Woyomegate – Nana Akomea

Nana Akomea

The Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea says president John Mills has been the most negligent in the Woyomegate scandal.

He said the arguments that the president deserves commendation for not shielding one of his own are at best, tenuous and at worse, risible.

Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Wednesday, Nana Akomea said given the chronology of events leading to the payment of GHS52 million to NDC businessman, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the president cannot under any circumstance be absolved of blame.

If indeed President Mills twice ordered that the money should not be paid and twice those orders were flagrantly violated, he argued, did the president need to wait and act only after a public uproar.

The Member of Parliament for Okaikoi South said suggestions that the payment came about as a result of institutional failures are untenable and must be consigned to the bin.

He maintained that the president must take responsibility for the connivance of his appointees to defraud the state, insisting that without official collusion and complicity, it would be next to impossible for a single individual like Mr Woyome to be able to obtain such huge amounts of money from the state.

Stressing the innocence of operatives of the erstwhile Kufuor administration, Nana Akomea said the Kufuor government at every stage acted in accordance with law and guided by the need to protect the national interest.

Claims that the previous government illegally terminated a contract with Waterville, purported to be Woyome's partners, giving rise to the action that occasioned the payments are deliberate distortions designed to obfuscate the issues and provide officials implicated in the matter with an alibi under which to seek refuge, he stated.

Reading copiously from letters, the former Information Minister said the contract with Waterville was abrogated because the firm failed to meet a condition precedent which failure formed sufficient legal basis for the abrogation. In fact Waterville did not oppose the termination of the country, he asserted, reading a letter o back his claim.

He said it was curious that having agreed that government had a legal right to terminate the contract by dint of their failure to provide proof of funding arrangement on which the contract was predicated, Waterville, who wrote to accede to the termination, albeit without prejudice to their entitlements owing to work they had already done, turned up years later to make incompetent claims to a new government that their contract was terminated illegally and that they were entitled to some claims.

Nana Akomea stressed it was particularly worrying that state officials did not challenge Waterville's incompetent claims but rather proceeded to go for mediation and eventually paid millions of Euros to Waterville.

Speaking to a cabinet memo written by then Education Minister Mr Yaw Osafo Marfo warning of dangers in terminating a tender process, Nana Akomea said those relying on the memo to impute wrongdoing to Mr Osafo Marfo are clutching at straws.

He said Education, Youth and Sports Minister was simply expressing an opinion to cabinet and that it was explained to him that given the stage of the process, the government could terminate it legally.

Story by Ghana l Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com