Asaga's Unfolding Saga

*How charges of approval of already approved ex-gratia and allegations of wife-beating and compromising picture led to 1st ministerial casualty

EMERGING DETAILS surrounding the withdrawal of the nomination of former Deputy Minister of Finance, Hon. Moses Aduko Asaga, suggests that President Mills may have taken three issues into consideration in firing his ministerial nominee for Water Resources, Works and Housing.

Sources close to the presidency say the President’s immediate fury was sparked off by the approval of ex-gratia for former president J. A. Kufuor, his Veep Aliu Mahama and other public officers on January 16, this year.

The unsavoury reputation of the MP for Nabdam and one-time Minority Spokesman on Finance as a wife-beater which had seen some women’s group, including NDC women activists, seeking to derail his ministerial appointment, also caught the President’s attention, sources say.

But the most damaging information that sealed the doom of the nominee was suggestions to the president from top-level sources that the nominee may have been allegedly caught in a compromising situation in a picture with a lady which could hurt the new administration.

Though this allegation, which friends say is false, was not brought to the attention of the nominee, sources say the unproven allegation got the already boiling president to put in a call to the man who once verbally assaulted a colleague MP over that that MP’s negative assertions over the health status of the then candidate Mills.

Are you the one who approved the ex-gratia payment, the President is reported to have asked.

Yes, Asaga is said to have responded without a slightest hint of the trouble he had unleashed on himself.

The President, sources say, quietly made his decision known to him.

As long as he remains President, Mr Asaga would never be a Minister of State, he vowed.

The President’s decision, apart from internal opposition to Asaga’s nomination, stems from the fact that by the Mills-administration approval effected by the nominee, the government would find it difficult to legally halt the Chinery-Hesse Committee- recommendation on emoluments, which the Government had wanted to initially freeze together with that of the recently-approved section on facilities and privileges.

Significantly, a number of NDC MPs and appointees of both the former NPP administration and the Mills-led NDC have already received their benefits.

Others, including former President Rawlings, have since 2006 been drawing salaries recommended by the first phase of the Chinery-Hesse report on emoluments, sources say.

Those yet to draw from the emolument package include Asaga himself, as well as President Mills in his capacity as a former Vice President under the 1996-2000 Rawlings-led NDC administration.

Though Asaga’s approval process was a routine process of what had already been approved and even been effected, the NDC’s stand on the issue as well as public condemnation of the recently-approved facilities and privileges package of the report saw the administration promising to take a second look at recommendation; an act some suggested would amount to an illegality. Others however say the current Parliament can do so with the approval of the beneficiaries.

This is the third time Asaga has been caught in party instigated trouble. He was once removed from the position of a Minority Spokesman (Ranking Member) on Finance in a coup inspired by a group that felt he was not too critical of the then NPP administration despite his persistent critique of the Kufuor administration

Former deputy ministerial colleague Dr. Tony Aidoo in 2004 also demanded Moses Asaga’s removal as Minority spokesman because the MP had led the Minority to endorse the controversial CNTC loan agreement.

Asaga is one of the few Mills’ loyalists to go mad over attempts by some party insiders to engineer a change of the then NDC party candidate for the 2008 elections and current President Mills.

The former deputy Finance Minister has since apologised for the sins he was unofficially told led to his withdrawal, though sources say it’s unlikely to work as the President is bent on sticking to his decision.

President Mills is not likely to budge, a source told this paper Saturday.

An emotionally-battered Asaga over the weekend however appealed to the President to tamper justice with mercy and reinstate his nomination.

He has, however, found no sympathy in the eyes of women activist who say his nomination was problematic.

Some women groups were preparing to petition Parliament on information that the ministerial nominee in June 2006 was alleged by the wife and a cousin of his, Ms Ayesha Timako, to have battered his wife, Mrs Florence Asaga and forcefully ejected her from her Ridge home, leading to an initial police complaint which was later withdrawn.

The compliant at the time listed at least five people as having taken part in the thrashing meted out to the wife on the night of June 8, 2006, including the husband and alleged chief instigator, whom she said, began it all and ordered his younger brothers and dependants to finish it off.

Family sources at the time told this newspaper that Mrs Asaga, a graduate caterer, was beaten and almost stripped naked in the presence of her three kids as well as a foster daughter. She had to hold torn parts of her dress to prevent her nakedness from being exposed, relatives told this paper then.

Mr Asaga denied beating the wife at the time though he admitted having pushed her.

He, however, suggested that other men would have committed murder if faced with the reasons for which he is reported to have beaten his wife, accusing his cousin, Ms Ayesha Timako, of stoking the matrimonial fire in his home.