J.H. Mensah blasts Jerry

In a front-page banner headline story, the Guide reports Mr J.H. Mensah, Minority Leader in Parliament as asking the armed forces to ignore what he described as "lies" about the Opposition as told by President Jerry Rawlings at the El-Wak Stadium on December 31. Mr Mensah is said to have accused President Rawlings of using the occasion to cause mischief.

"This is only a blatant lie as President Rawlings well knows, but also an attempt to cover up another foreign deal of the same type as the jet deal from the Cayman Islands", he is quoted as saying.

The Guide says that Mr Mensah's reaction is in respect of a statement by President Rawlings that the Minority in Parliament had stood against his worthy efforts to provide the security services with the logistics, which they need to work with.

According to the paper, Mr Mensah explained that in the dying days of the second sitting of Parliament in December last year, the NDC government presented to the House, a contract that it had negotiated with a South African arms dealer, Messrs Reumech OMC.

The Minority leader is reported as saying that the Executive demanded that all MPs approve the agreement in a great hurry before rising for vacation. He said in view of the fact that the MPs had not scrutinised the agreement, the House did not approve of it in the interest of the nation.

He is said to have further explained that the agreement was a follow-up to one the House approved on July 30, in respect of a suppliers credit agreement for $16.9 million. He said during the probing of this agreement, some damaging aspects of the whole transaction were exposed.

He said instead of addressing the basic day-to-day needs of the Police Service, $11.7 million of the $16.9 million loan was used to import armoured vehicles and water cannons for the Service instead of basic communication equipment and gadgets.

"Every competent police officer will tell you that their most urgent priority need is to re-equip them for mobility and communication", he is quoted as saying.