Amidu Explodes Again; I’m Not A Traitor, Chief Of Staff A Coward
Former Attorney General, Martin Alamisi B.K. Amidu, has made an allegation that directly fingers President John Evans Atta Mills and his Chief of Staff, John Henry Martey Newman, for shielding senior government officials who have a direct hand in fleecing the state of GH¢51.2 million in the Woyome judgment debt scandal.
Mr Amidu accused the president of interfering in the work of the Attorney General and called the chief of staff a 'coward and a hypocrite,' daring the two to publish the names of government officials who benefitted from the Woyome 'booty'.
In the latest of his series of press statements, the long time member of the PNDC stated that on January 6, 2012, he wrote a 10-page letter to the President through his Chief of Staff, Martey Newman, within which he painstakingly outlined the shady circumstances of the judgment debt pay out and the names of all government officials whose hands were tainted in the Woyome case.
'Why are they not publishing the names, why should I be the first who would spill the beans?' he challenged the government in a follow-up interview on Joy FM yesterday morning.
According to Mr Amidu, he had had the wrong impression that he would receive the needed support to retrieve the judgment debt fraudulently paid to Mr. Woyome. 'I was in Court in person and the statement of case, together with the accompanying application and my single-minded determination to retrieve the gargantuan GH¢51million for the Republic of Ghana is now known to all.'
Opponents Panic
But according to him, when he began to make progress in the case, opponents of the case within the Mills administration panicked and put pressure on the President to stall the process.
He said the people claimed that Woyome was the party financier.
He alleged that contrary to the claims put out by the NDC communications team that he was a bitter person because he had been sacked as Attorney General, he rather offered to resign but he was persuaded to remain at post in order to help retrieve the Woyome cash.
'It was in the course of the meeting of 13th January 2012 that I told the President (citing examples) that he had been interfering in the execution of my functions as the Attorney-General under Article 88 of the Constitution and, therefore, I had resigned from his Government forthwith.'
Mr. Amidu's revelation completely rubbishes the earlier accusation of government officials that he, among other things, had misconducted himself and raised false alarm about his findings in the judgment debt investigation.
It was claimed in the state-run Daily Graphic story that he failed to name the culprits and was rather on bended knees when pressed to name names.
According to Amidu, 'It, therefore, came as no surprise to me, when the Chief of Staff who was part of the meeting of 13th January 2012, hypocritically issued a press statement to the effect that I had misconducted myself as a Minister.
'I accordingly sent him a reply on 20th January 2012 and dared him to publish my reply to him and my letter of 6th January 2012 to the public. He has cowardly refused to make any of them public.'
He said all the names of government officials he suspected to have benefited from the Woyome cash had been sent to the President.
Last January, Mr Amidu released a press statement alleging that there were criminal elements in government pulling the strings to unlawfully skim funds from government coffers into their personal accounts.
Mr. Amidu's latest revelation contradicts President Mills's earlier denial that he knew about details of the Judgment debt payment before his January 9 media encounter with selected journalists at the Castle in Osu.
Media Encounter
During the media encounter, President Mills succinctly stated that he did not know about the judgment debt paid to Mr. Woyome, hence his order for the Economic and Crime Office (EOCO) to investigate and inform him about the issues.
The President said he was not criminally-minded to authorize such huge payments to Woyome.
Mr. Amidu said the President had deceived the whole world by this move: 'They [the world] had been fed false and 'spin' information from the Castle,' he stated in his latest press statement.
Mr. Amidu was sacked from the Mills government on January 19, 2012 after a crisis meeting on January 13, 2012.
In a statement seeking to explain his dismissal, the Chief of Staff, Mr Martey Newman, a lawyer, simply stated that Mr. Amidu misconducted himself. 'Mr. Amidu's behaviour is incompatible with acceptable standards expected of ministers and appointees of the President,' stated Mr. Newman.
Mr Amidu has earned himself caustic verbal and personal attacks from the government's communication team as an 'aggrieved' person.
Reacting to these accusations, the former Attorney General has threatened to release more pieces of evidence against the NDC government if members of the government communication team continued to cast aspersions on his personality. 'Members of the NDC communications team have, since I exited government, tried to create the impression that I am a bitter and aggrieved person that is why I am advocating probity and accountability and transparency in government.'
According to NDC sources, the party's communication team had a crisis meeting to prepare for appropriate responses to the latest bombshell.
On Peace FM's morning show yesterday, James Agyenim Boateng, a Deputy Minister of Information and loquacious Felix Ofosu Kwakye, who were to appear on the show, could not take their seats with the explanation that they had gone to the Castle for briefing.
Bombshell
According to him, he would not reveal the names of the corrupt officials he hinted the President about in his January 6 missive until the government behaved 'dishonourably' towards him.
'Let the communications team and the government people come and say something that will bring my reputation into disrepute then you will know what I told the President,' he said on radio.
Since the huge judgment debt was paid to Mr. Woyome in 2010, the embattled ex-Attorney General has mounted a personal crusade to expose the alleged machinations of key elements in the Mills government, calling on all Ghanaians to become 'vigilantes' in retrieving the monies.
Mr. Amidu's predecessor, Betty Mould Iddrisu, has been cited in the scandal.
According to information gathered by DAILY GUIDE , she unilaterally ordered the payment of the controversial debt to businessman and financier of the NDC, Alfred Woyome.
Mr. Amidu claimed that his revelation had led to threats on his life, but he did not 'give a damn,' as he was ready to pay the ultimate price for the vanguard role he had assumed.
By Raphael Adeniran