Oware On The Run?

After bluffing he would face Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, a.k.a General Mosquito, General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in court over alleged defamatory statements, Mr. Fred Oware, former Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.) of the Bui Power Authority (BPA), has vanished into thin air, following a ¢10 billion Cedis law suit filed against him.

Court bailiffs have for some time now been searching for Mr. Oware to serve him with a writ of summons of a suit filed by the General Secretary of the NDC seeking, among others, damages to the tune of 1 million Ghana Cedis (10 billion Cedis).

The Catalyst has learnt that several attempts at reaching the former BPA boss who is also a vice chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to be served with the writ have proven futile, whilst General Mosquito continues to bear the cost of the search.

According to the writ, Mr. Asiedu Nketia claimed he was defamed and criminalized by statements made by Mr. Oware, which were subsequently widely published in the media, thereby bringing his name into disrepute.

Mr. Oware, at a recent press conference, had accused the NDC Scribe of conflict of interest due to the fact that his (Asiedu Nketia's) company supplies cement blocks to the BPA for construction; he also impugned ignorance to Mr. Nketia's declaration that the past board did not leave behind any minutes of meetings held, to serve as a basis for the decisions and justification for the establishment of the BPA.

Justifying his recourse to legal redress in an earlier press conference in Accra, Mr. Nketia maintained that it had become the best solution to the unfounded allegations of 'conflict of interest' and 'insider trading' levelled against his person.

On the issue of conflict of interest in the award of contracts, Mr. Nketia explained that Sino Hydro, a Chinese construction, sublet the contract to his company and that had nothing to do with the BPA Board. “Mr. Oware should know that as per the project agreement the BPA Board has no say as far as the sourcing of materials by the contractor, Sino Hydro is concerned,” he stated.

He accused Mr. Fred Oware and the NPP of adding a third component to the Bui projects and failing to follow due procedure. “There is a hydro electric project, which we have seen, there is an irrigation project, which provisions we have seen and there is a Bui City Project and if it turns out that everything about the Bui City project is false then that government has a lot of questions to answer,” he claimed, saying Mr. Oware in particular had some questions to answer in this case.

In April 2007 the Government of Ghana through an Executive Instrument (EI) based on Act 125, acquired about 1840 km2 of land for the purposes of implementing the Bui Hydroelectric Project. This area included lands to be inundated, lands for employers' personnel and facilities and lands for the development of the proposed Bui City.