Former top advisor under the Provisional Defence Council (PNDC) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) administrations, Mr Paul Victor Obeng, has denied reports that suggested that he took bribes from the Norwegian cement giant, SCANCEM, owners of Ghana’s leading cement company, GHACEM.
He also says he cannot bring himself to see how the company could have paid bribes to the former first family during his tenure in public office, stressing that former President Rawlings is a man who could not have succumbed to bribery pressure as alleged.
He has also indicated that an interview published by the Crusading Guide newspaper which suggested that he had admitted receiving his portion of the bribe but described it as consultation fee was inaccurate, since it was a misinterpretation of the admission he made.
He also sees as baseless speculations that he may have been caught in a conflict of interest situation by virtue of that admission, and has explained that he worked and received payment from SCANCEM in a private capacity, and only after exiting government in 1996.
"I know nothing of the alleged payments whatsoever and certainly nothing about the alleged Bank accounts in Switzerland or elsewhere," he said in various statements to the GNA, Joy FM and Oman FM over the weekend from the UK.
"I wish to state here and now quite categorically that I have never ever made any admissions or any statements, to any person, in whatever shape or form which can even be remotely interpreted as an admission of receipts of any sums of money (which were not) consultancy payments from SCANCEM whilst in public office.
"Indeed I could not have made any admissions to matters which simply did not happen." PV also sought to explain what might have informed what he termed the misinterpretation by the Crusading Guide.
According to him, he received a phone call whilst in London from a journalist in Ghana.
"In the very brief conversation the reporter sought to know if I knew about a court case in Norway involving Mr. Tor Kjelsaas and his former employers, Scancem.
"The very poor connection did not allow for any lengthy conversation, which was in any case terminated when the line got cut off. It appears my simple reply to his (reporter’s) queries is now what has been twisted or misinterpreted as my alleged admission to the receipt of millions of dollars for consultancy payments."
PV said he would not know what motivated the SCACEM staff on trial in Norway to allege that he paid bribes to him and Mrs Rawlings, but insisted that the allegation that he paid bribes to them and former president Rawlings so that the company’s monopoly in the production and distribution of cement in the country would be sustained, is false.
“I think it is completely false and unfounded. I cannot see the ex-president stooping so low as to do what he is reported to have done. And in any case, it was never discussed in government that we should grant monopoly and no monopoly indeed was granted to SCANCEM.”
PV said he formed a company which did some consulting work for SCANCEM after he exited public office in December 1996. The contract, he noted, elapsed in December, last year.
"One of the Norwegian companies was SCANCEM with whom my company entered into a retainer agreement which began in mid 1998 and expired in December, 2006.”
PV said he never worked as a consultant for SCANCEM in any capacity whatsoever during his stay in public office.
"Indeed I can emphatically say that during my long stay in pubic office I did not accept to serve on boards of companies, whether public or private, foreign or local because I am acutely aware of the conflict of interest situations I might be placed in. It obviously will defy logic to place myself in such a position in relation to SCANCEM".
PV said he was paid by the company either in cash or by cheques, but he was not in a position to tell if the company did establish an account in his name through which it saved or sent money for his payments.
The official of SCANCEM on trial in Norway for embezzlement alleged that he paid bribes into two separate accounts allegedly owned by Mr Obeng and Ghana’s former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings; an allegation strongly dismissed by Mrs Rawlings as well. On his part, Mr Rawlings has insisted that the allegations are false and challenged the ruling administration to seize the opportunity offered by the allegation of the former SCANCEM staff to prove he is corrupt or stop soiling his image.
Rawlings has also accused the government of being behind the allegation; something the Press Secretary to the President, Mr Andrew Awuni, has dismissed.
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