Galloper Vehicles Saga -NPP Caught In A Web of Lies

The largest opposition party in Ghana, the NPP, has once again turned to one of its hobbies, lying, to extricate itself from the mess it landed Ghana into in the AAL Gallop Vehicles saga.

Taking a leaf from Adolf Hitler's propaganda expert, Joseph Goebbels, that 'If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth', the NPP once again deployed some of its stalwarts to lie to Ghanaians to conceal how their pettiness and vindictiveness has saddled Ghana with another gargantuan debt.

And so it came to pass that Former Chief of Staff, Kwadwo Mpiani, Former Local Government Ministers, Kwadwo Adjei Darko and Charles Bintim , a Former Deputy Local Government Minister, Maxwell Kofi Jumah and a Former Deputy Attorey General, Osei Prempeh, all took to the media to lie to Ghanaians that the Kufuor-led NPP government did not pay Africa Automobile Limited(AAL) what was due it for the supply of Galloper II vehicles to the Government of Ghana(GOG) in 2000 because there was no contract between it and AAL.

Kwadwo Mpiani, in an interview with Joy FM said there was no basis for the GOG to negotiate with AAL for payment to be made to the latter. He added that he was not sure there were documents covering the transactions.

On Wednesday, June 27, 2012, Osei Prempeh, who was Deputy Attorney-General in the NPP Administration in an interview on TV also said there was no contract between GOG and AAL for the latter to supply the vehicles. He said his office never sighted any official contract on the importation, and that it would not have been proper for the government, at the time, to commit state funds to a venture without official documentation.

A former Minister for Local Government also during the era of the NPP, Charles Bintim speaking during a radio programme defended the NPP government's refusal to pay AAL asserting that there was no contract between GOG and the AAL for the latter to supply the vehicles.

“In 2005, I was contended with this issue as a new minister at the local government ministry where I called for the officials of the company. After the meeting I told them to produce their contract document because there was no document on the vehicles at the ministry so they left and I did not hear from them again. Any contract given, you will at least see a contract or an evaluated document of the contract but I did not in anyway see a single document. I looked in our dispatch letter book and saw nothing so I couldn't have paid” he asserted.

Another Former Local Government and Rural Development Minister under the erstwhile Kufuor government, Kwadwo Adjei-Darko, said the GOG, and for that matter his former ministry, never entered into any contract with AAL to import any vehicles into the country for onward distribution to the district assemblies.

He said there was no document covering the so-called importation of the Galloper cross-country vehicles.

The Daily Guide of June 29, 2012 quoted a Deputy Minister for Local Government also under the NPP regime, Maxwell Kofi Jumah, as saying during a radio programme that the government need not pay AAL because the company did not enter into any contract with government to supply the vehicles.

“I read more on the gallopers but found no agreement between the company and government…The late Baah Wiredu was the first minister at the local government ministry and the first challenge he faced was this issue. At the time Baah Wiredu saw that the former minister, Kwamena Ahwoi had arranged with the company to furnish the various assemblies with vehicles but there was no agreement to that effect”, he was quoted as saying

But, these lies did not go far when Prof. Kwamena Ahwoi, the man during whose tenure of office as Local government Minister the vehicles were ordered revealed that there was a contract between the GOG and AAL for the supply of the vehicles.

Some media houses, including this paper, have managed to lay hands on the contract and other documentations which prove that there was a contract between the GOG and the AAL.

One of the documents is a letter from the Ministry of Local Government dated November 7, 2000 and addressed to AAL. The letter referred to an earlier letter dated 10th January 2000 and said it was to reconfirm the Ministry's order of 110 Galloper cross-country vehicles at the total sum of $3, 553,000. It said payments made so far amounted to $1.52million. The letter, signed by the Chief Director of the Ministry, S.Y.M. Zanu stated that the balance will be paid within three months.

Interestingly, soon after it was made public that there was documental proof that a contract existed between the GOG and AAL, Kwadwo Adjei Darko who had earlier vehemently denied the existence of any contract began to sing a new song. In an interview with Joy FM, he said “…There is nowhere I stated that there is no contract and I did not also admit there was a contract. The exact words I used were that I did not sight any contract.”

That theses NPP apparatchiks lied when they claimed there was no documentation or contract covering the transaction between the GOG and the AAL, can be seen from the fact that available court documents indicate that the NPP government was in court in October 2005 to challenge the AAL which had dragged it to court over the refusal of the government to pay for the Galloper vehicles. And, in its statement of defence where it made the counter claim, the Attorney-General copiously referred to portions in the agreement between the GOG and the AAL to claim that the latter breached terms of the contract by failing to deliver the vehicles on time.

The million dollar question is why these leading NPP figures could claim there was never any contract between the GOG and the AAL for the importation of the 110 vehicles when in court, they had quoted portions of the contract in their counter-claim.

The pettiness and vindictiveness of the NPP government which ruled Ghana from 2001 to 2008 has led to several legal suits against the state before various courts at home and abroad. Rather than pay the judgement debts imposed on the GOG for failing to honour its obligations, the Kufuor government blatantly refused which led to a situation where interests accrued, turning small debts to very huge ones. It also led to the situation where Ghana's properties in various parts of the world, including its UN accounts, began to be attached per international regulations to defray the debts.

The NDC government, on assuming office decided to renegotiate these debts and succeeded in beating the amounts down before beginning to effect payment. Rather than show gratitude, the NPP has rather sought to deceive Ghanaians into thinking that the government was dissipating the state's money recklessly. As many have said, what is happening in Ghana now is the case of the thief calling the farm owner a thief because the farm owner has failed to catch him.