Kufuor Accused Of Abetment Of Crime

The National Democratic Congress (NDC), in challenging the Minister of Information, Nana Akomea, on a statement he made recently in defence of a portion in a speech President Kufuor delivered at the NPP Congress at Cape Coast in the Central Region a couple of months ago, has maintained that the President?s pronouncement amounted to ?abetment of crime, the crime of attempting bribery.

President J. A. Kufuor, discoursing on the issue of bribery, is reported by the NDC as saying, ?If it is money we want, they bring it ?waa waa, waa.? But we learn to say no, hold back, come back again.

In his defence of this reported statement, the Minister explained that President Kufuor did not indicate what kinds of situation he regarded as temptations that he (Kufuor) tried to take him away from. But it could not be that he said people brought him bribes, that he pinched himself to be able to resist the bribe, and asked the bribe giver to go and bring the bribe next time.

Dwelling on what had been attributed to the Head of State (as quoted above), the NDC ? the largest opposition party in the country ? countered. ?For a President to create a situation where people bring him bribes is bad enough. For him to tell the bribe giver to go and come back later is not only unpardonable??

The NDC took a cursory look at increases in the prices of petroleum products, increases in academic user fees in the universities, school fees among other things, and bluntly stated, ?Kufour?s administration is a heartless government bent on creating a ?propertied democracy? in which only the wealthy can survive.

In his reaction to utterances made by Professor Mills during a public forum in Accra a few months ago, Nana Akomea said the government expressed regret for acts of political intolerance exhibited by the security agencies and referred to four incidents involving former GNPC Chief Executive, Tsatsu Tsikata former Auditor-General, Osei Tutu Prempeh and Kwabena Kusi, the Kumasi mechanic.