Coup against Terkper foiled as IMF engages Ghana

Detractors of the otherwise hardworking Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. Seth Terkper, last Wednesday reactivate their ‘Mafia moves’ to get him out of the ministry.

The ‘dirty Coup’ was, however, crushed minutes before organizers could achieve their aim.

There had been wild rumors, Wednesday that the minister had been booted out of office by the very President John Dramani Mahama, who has time and again, affirmed his confidence in the man who is protecting the national purse.

The moves to hound Mr. Terkper out of office, are the handiwork of people within the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, including blood relations of President John Dramani Mahama, The Inquisitor was told.

The Coup was plotted at the time the President was effecting changes in the handlers of various state agencies.

A simple exercise by the President was made to look as if there was a serious reshuffle, which had affected Mr. Terkper’s office too.

At the time the evil plot was made public last Wednesday, Mr. Terkper and other officials of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning were engaging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on progress Ghana had made since opting for that Breton Wood institution’s programme, this year.

It was the grand scheme of the coup plotters to disorganize the work that the minister and his group were doing with the IMF on the bailout, with such announcement.

However, the Chief of Staff, Mr. Julius Debrah, was quick in foiling the Coup with a position that the minister was at post and not removed.

The move was not the first time to get the minister out of office as there had been numerous cruel moves against the minister.

Amazingly, the excuse for such dirty machinations has always been that the minister is too strict and always insisted on things being done right.

There is also the excuse that the minister does not release funds for various payments; an argument that was dead on arrival because the minister does not work as if the ministry is his personnel business entity, but rather works on instruction from the President and Cabinet.

Certain persons who were part of the grand scheme against the minister, with time, has come to realization that things were different from what they were made to believe.

It is instructive to know that Mr. Terkper was very instrumental in getting Ghana on the inevitable IMF bailout programme.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Terkper had earlier received commendation on how he worked hard with the IMF team before the programme came into fruition.

President Mahama is on record to have revealed how some dark forces in government prevailed upon him to fire the finance minister.

Under the watch of Mr. Terkper, lots of holes have been plugged to prevent people from dipping their filthy hands into the national kitty.

Some persons who were working with the ministry were also conducting businesses for the ministry as consultants and drawing huge sums of money; but the minister stopped that unhealthy development, too.

There are indications that the perpetrators of the dirty game would not recoil into their shells anytime soon, but could come up with another game plan.