$250m saga: Govt either ‘a thief, not wise or both’ – Konadu

Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings has waded into the exchanges between Finance Minister Seth Terkper and the main opposition New Patriotic Party's vice presidential candidate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia regarding government’s decision to transfer $250 million of the proceeds from the $1 billion Eurobond into private bank United Bank for Africa (UBA).

Dr Bawumia has described the action as reckless.

According to him, the Finance Minister’s decision was a sign of weakness and incompetence.

He maintained that Seth Terkper’s justification of the transaction “confirms that those in charge of managing our finances do not know what they are doing”.

Addressing students of the Accra Polytechnic last week, Dr Bawumia accused government of diverting the money for political campaign purposes.

However, the Finance Minister, at a news conference to respond to Dr Bawumia’s claims, said “government acted within the law”.

“The US$250 million seed money to the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) lodged by the Board with a commercial bank is safe and has already started bearing interest to the idle fund,” Mr Terkper said.

But adding her voice to this matter on her official Facebook page, the founder and flagbearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP) said the finance minister’s decision showed that the government was either “not wise, a thief, or both.”

She stressed: “If you borrow money at a high interest rate to lend it to another at a low interest rate then borrow your own money back from them at a high interest rate, you are either not wise, a thief or both,” adding: “No wonder their campaign message of ‘vote for us so they don't jail us’”.

The wife of NDC founder J.J. Rawlings said also that: “It's time to save Ghana from this criminality.”

The government is not expected to react to these comments emanating from Mrs Rawlings. Dr Edward Omane Boamah, Minister of Communications, in a recent interview with Metro TV in Accra, said Mrs Rawlings will be so insignificant ahead of the November 7 elections and due to her “insignificance” the government would refrain from discussing issues relating to her.