"....Kan Dapaah lied through his teeth" - Adjaho

The Member of Parliament for Avenor, Doe Adjaho, has reiterated that the Energy Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah, lied through his teeth when he said that 7 trillion cedis out of the government’s targeted revenue of 13 trillion cedis was going to be used for debt servicing, though Parliament had approved 4.4 trillion cedis for that exercise.

Speaking in reaction to a front page story in the Crusading Guide, with the headline "ADJAHO SHOT OFF TARGET,… He Only Needed To Check His Figures Before Calling Me A Liar" published in the 25 - 31 October 2001 issue, the MP for Avenor stated that the Energy Minister had lost credibility for making the above statement, which was earlier carried by another local newsaper.

Kan Dapaah in the paper’s last edition had described as unfortunate a statement by Doe Adjaho on a Sunyani-based radio station and subsequently on an Accra-based radio station to the effect that he (Kan Dapaah) had lied by saying that 7 trillion cedis was going to be used for debt servicing.

Mr Adjaho referred to the Parliaemntary Hansard to prove his point, saying, “We are dealing with figures”. According to him, Kan Dapaah mentioned 7 trillion cedis as the money meant to service Ghana's foreign debt. "But look at the Hansard", Mr Adjaho said, pointing to the 4.4 trillion cedis. "This is what we have approved", he asserted.

He further explained that the 7.7 trillion cedis included the external debt of 4.4 trillion cedis and other components like pension and gratuity, interest on domestic debt, District Assembly Common Fund, Road Fund and Education Trust Fund as stated by Mr Osafo Maafo as Government obligations.