B.A. Mensah speaks out!

Mr B.A. Mensah, a renowned business tycoon whose company - International Tobacco Co. Ltd. - was confiscated by the defunct PNDC, under Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, has stated that it is only when there is transparency in the judicial system that a country receives bona fide investment.

Speaking at a fund raising dinner dance of the New Patriotic Party in Accra, he said no one wants to invest his or her money in a country where the government may seize it arbitrarily without compensation where the recourse to law is long, expensive and unfair.

"No one wants to invest in a country where the government treats the law with contempt. Contempt indeed," he said. He recalled the murder of the three High Court Judges and a retired Army officer in 1982 and wondered the possibility of only one man, Amartey Kwei, going ahead to kidnap the four, travelling with them to the bush across strong police barriers, kill all of them and set them ablaze.

He said transparency "means Government that does not operate by suspicion, nepotism and backhanders. Confidence in the judicial system means knowing that if something goes wrong there will be a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal.

Mr Mensah gave the assurance that the NPP would provide transparency in government and the party's plans to modernise and reform the judicial system would result in confidence being established in it.