Baah-Wiredu challenged

Mr Anthony Gyampoh, Eastern Region Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has asked Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, to stop politicising the audit report on the former District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives and challenged him to publish the report.

He said it was only the Minister and his deputies who knew the contents of the reports and they had been making public statements on them to disparage the former Chief Executives. Mr Gyampoh, a former District Chiefs Executive for Akwapim North, was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Koforidua.

He said in October 2000, Mr Baah-Wiredu and his deputies started talking about the number of DCEs who had been exonerated and those against whom adverse findings had been made 'but as at the time that he was talking none of the DCEs had officially been informed about the findings against them''.

Mr Gyampo said the audit report had also not been sent to Parliament for discussion. "I see the whole exercise as an attempt by the Government to victimise the former DCEs and MCEs in contravention of its declared policy to ensure the rule of law.

"If that is not the case then why should it happen that the condition of service requirement that we should be paid three months' salary in lieu of notice of discontinuation of our service had not been honoured? This is not an ex-gratia allowance", Mr Gyampoh said.

He said he would not be surprised to hear that fresh evidence had been found against those former DCEs and MCEs that were exonerated by the said audit report. Mr Gyampoh said: "Information available to us indicates that the government wants to release the result of the so called audit report in the election year and blow it out of proportions for political gains."