Look who’s talking about credibility – Ofori-Atta ‘blasts’ ‘questionable’ Asiedu Nketia

It is rather interesting that an individual, who himself has credibility issues and cannot claim to be ‘clean’ as far as shadiness and corruption is concerned will stand publicly to accuse and throw shades at another, a Member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s Communication Team, Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta has said about National Democratic Congress (NDC) General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia.

Mr. Ofori-Atta, touching on the NDC’s presser Tuesday, chided the party for spewing out the routine propaganda-filled messages with very little solutions to problems they say are affecting the country.

The press conference which was addressed by Mr. Nketia on issues regarding the PDS and FTI report noted among other things, that the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, his Vice, Mahamudu Bawumia and other government officials including the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta had schemed to put their selfish interests over that of the nation and its citizens.

He noted that government knew the right processes and the consequences of decisions they were taking as regards the PDS agreement but went ahead regardless to compromise the country’s resources.

In his words, “government officials led by Dr. Bawumia and under the guidance of President Akufo-Addo decided to sacrifice the nation’s interest by changing the key requirement of a bank guarantee to that of an insurance guarantee thereby jeopardizing the access of ECG and the interest of Ghanaians”.

“The critical question is whose interest was the Vice President acting on behalf of President Akufo-Addo serving when he took that reckless decision which he knew very well or ought to know as a professional was inimical to the interest of Ghana”.

Johnson Asiedu Nketia’s comment comes after investigations on the concession agreement between PDS and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) which was suspended on Tuesday, July 30 by government due to “fundamental and material breaches”.

PDS was faulted for not having enough financial guarantees for the deal after a committee was set to probe into the issue.

But responding to allegations, Mr. Ofori Atta said Mr. Nketia had no moral rights to first, question the credibility of government, to tag the NPP administration as corrupt and to call for the head of persons he assumes evaded due processes in the agreement.

“I arranged a question as to whether we are looking to solve our problems. Is that what Mr. Asiedu Nketia and his people were seeking to do? What were the solutions to it, look who’s talking. Talking about credibility, look who’s talking and what were the solutions offered?”, he quizzed.

“Getting caught up in name calling, is that what is going to solve the problem? Every now and then, trying to ridicule your opponent helps but is it going to get you somewhere on a crucial matter like this?”

“When it is coming on a serious note, it will be heard, not on this flippant-ish way of dealing with issues. I thought that there’s nothing new or impressive about their approach and I keep asking, look who’s talking. Where was Mr. Asiedu Nketia when all the other issues were raised in his regime? How was he dealing with it? I don’t expect him to come out in public and say my people should stop this but quietly did he play a role in how governance was being conducted at the time, can he show us evidence that he is clean? He himself, he had issues as some pseudo state official. There were issues about him on these matters of corruption”.

“When you want to now come and talk to the public about that issues that you think should be tackled, you want to come with an approach that will make people want to listen to you”, he added.

He believes the NDC’s allegations were ‘empty rhetorics’. Rather than calling for ‘blood’ every time, Mr. Ofori-Atta suggested that the President, like he is already doing, be given room to refer cases of corruption that emerge under his administration to the appropriate bodies for investigations to be done and based on the findings, actions be taken.

“I don’t think there’s anything in this, the questions he raised. The fact is, every time something is found out, your first call is always to rush to discredit the person who is found in the limelight of the situation”.

“Is that our first interest? Calling for blood to flow all the time? Or are we seeking to solve certain problems? The first step is to get certain things out of the way, seems to me that the first thing we want to do is to get an investigation out of the way so you do things that will let the investigation take place, so you secure the facts about the situation, when you are clear about that, then you get the facts”.