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15.07.2019 Feature Article

When Did NDC Publish Any List of Judgment-Debt Beneficiaries?

When Did NDC Publish Any List of Judgment-Debt Beneficiaries?
15.07.2019 LISTEN

We were just recently informed by Finance Minister Kenneth Ofori-Atta that the departing Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) left behind approximately a half-billion cedis in debt, of which we are told the current Akufo-Addo Administration is obligated to paying off at least GHȻ 94 Million a year in order not to risk judicial garnishment on development funding for the Ghanaian taxpayer and citizenry (See “Publish List of Judgment-Debt Beneficiaries – Minority Demands” Modernghana.com 7/13/19). It was, however, not clear to yours truly from the foregoing referenced news report, whether the leaders of the National Democratic Congress, including former Deputy Finance Minister Mr. C. Ato Forson, the plaintiff demanding the publication of a list of all judgment-debt beneficiaries, had set the laudable precedent of regularly publishing a list of “Judgment-Debt Beneficiaries” while he served as Deputy Finance Minister under the watch of former President John Dramani Mahama, so as to enable our august House of Parliament healthily deliberate over the same.

If the Mahama Posse happens not to have provided to their erstwhile Parliamentary Minority counterparts what the present NDC’s Parliamentary Minority is, in turn, demanding, then, at best, the Haruna Iddrisu Gang is simply being mischievous. Our hunch here is that these pathologically cynical NDC operatives are, indeed, far less interested in ensuring that the present government pursue a frugal and disciplined fiscal policy agenda for the benefit of the Ghanaian taxpayer than cheaply seeking to score political points in the leadup to the 2020 general election. I come to this conclusion because during the 8 years that the Mills-Mahama Posse occupied the helm of our country’s affairs, that is, the conduct of the people’s business, these presently screaming self-righteous opposition parliamentary operatives absolutely did not show any patriotic sense of good governance.

To be certain, racking up judgment debts so that these NDC apparatchiks could cut backdoor deals for a proverbial salesperson’s share of the same, has been known to have assumed avocational proportions. Actually, for some of these professional scam-artists, deliberately failing to show up in court in order to enable petitioners and claimants amass wealth at the expense of the State may very well have been their real day jobs, their official titles and designations to the contrary notwithstanding. On the face of it, it may appear to be the right thing to do by having the Office of the Finance Minister publish a periodic list of judgment-debt recipients and/or beneficiaries. But, of course, it goes without saying that the present Parliamentary Minority Representatives , especially those who served in the Mills-Mahama cabinet, have a bounden obligation to explain to their colleagues of the New Patriotic Party Parliamentary Majority why it had not been necessary for the former to have published a comprehensive list of judgment-debt recipients or beneficiaries under their watch, to enable House Members more constructively and productively engage in healthy and fiscally protective deliberations over the same until now.

On the latter count, we need to highlight the fact that it was these same NDC-MPs who used their parliamentary majority then to enable Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome evade promptly paying back the GHȻ 51.2 Million in fraudulent claims that the infamous NDC’s major financier had managed to wangle from our National Treasury, with the eager and willful complicity of a symphonic orchestra of some of the most powerful members of the Rawlings-fangled National Democratic Congress’ political machine operatives, including then President Atta-Mills, Vice-President Mahama and some cabinet and ministerial appointees and operatives. You see, with smooth-talking newly converted “patriots” and “statesmen” like Mr. Ato Forson, good intentions are never neatly differentiable or distinguishable from bad and devious ones.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
July 14, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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