The Volta Regional Minister, Joseph Amenowode, has stated that he does not take money or kickbacks from contractors, as being alleged by some faceless people suspected to be members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the region, urging members who do not understand anything to approach him for explanations.
Mr. Amenowode however said that though he has on many occasions rejected envelopes from people as gifts, he will not hesitate to take goats if they bring them to him. “I always reject envelopes from people but if you bring me a goat, I will accept them, adding, “Will you have rejected them if you were in my shoes?”
The Minister’s ‘confessions’ threw the filled-to-capacity Ho Municipal Assembly Hall into uncontrollable laughter, with some asking if the goats were not bought with money and others wondering whether rejecting money and accepting goats does not amount to the same thing.
Mr. Amenowode, who was addressing chiefs, Heads of Departments and Members of the Ho Municipal Assembly on Wednesday, as part of his ongoing outreach programme, appealed to aggrieved members of the NDC to stop writing secrets letters to the Castle and other places asking for his dismissal or that of other office holders, but should rather approach them for explanations.
In an attempt to justify the slow nature of the Atta Mills Administration, the Volta Regional Minister said the state of affairs left to President Mills by former President Kufuor was like handing over a vehicle with a faulty brake to someone to drive in the middle of a steep slope.
Comparing the state of the nation to the vehicle with a faulty brake, the old driver to former President Kufuor and the new driver to President Mills, Mr. Amenowode noted that there is the urgent need for the new driver to drive slowly till the vehicle arrives home safely.
He said the people who handed over the vehicle with the damaged brake to President Mills on a slope, are the same people who are shouting that he should drive faster “but the President, knowing how dangerous it is to do so, decides to drive slowly but surely”.
Mr. Amenowode said things are not moving well because the government used the whole of last year to settle debts left behind by the previous government and appealed to Ghanaians to be patient with the NDC administration because, “the vehicle has landed safely”.
He lambasted the NPP government for failing to pay the Tema Oil Refinery debts and levying Ghanaians with TOR recovery debts even though the levy, after its collection, he alleged, was rather shared amongst members of the NPP who were appearing on radio talk shows to defend the previous government.
Mr. Amenowode alleged that most of the Ghana@ 50 projects the NPP government claimed they had put up, including toilets and rest stops, do not exist.
The Regional Minister, who is also the MP for Hohoe South, said the cost of the Ghana@ 50 billboards were equal to that of building two public universities and gave the assurance that anyone found culpable of financial malfeasance during the Ghana @ 50 Anniversary will be jailed.
On the issue of solving the youth unemployment, he noted that the public sector is so choked that one can only pray and fast for someone to die, if he is in search of a job. He said the only alternative left is for the youth to go into agriculture which he said the government will support.
