Victor Smith confesses $5bn allegation against Kufuor lacked basis

Like the chirpy sun bird, Victor Smith, former Ambassador to the Czech Republic, penciled in by the President to take charge of the Residency at Koforidua, sang before the Parliamentary Appointments Committee sitting at Parliament House in Accra, yesterday.

He stunned the Committee, when he stated that at the time he made a number of publications against former President John Agyekum Kufuor, that the sitting President had pocketed a cool $5 million from an oil deal with a Kuwaiti magnate, he had no proof of what he was putting in the public domain.


Like Ms. Comfort Ama Benyiwa-Doe, who sat sheepishly before the same committee in 2009 and confessed that all the allegations of drug dealings she made against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, had no basis, the various stories Mr. Smith put in various publications about the ex-President and the oil deal were the figment of his own imagination.


It was all political talk, Ama Chavez said, before being posted to the Central Region as political and administrative head.


At the offices of The Chronicle, Editor Ebo Quansah said Parliament has a duty to disqualify Victor Smith to serve as a deterrent. “We cannot pack people lying through their teeth to lead our regions. It does not speak well of us as a nation that is seriously seeking to re-build”.


He also charged President John Evans Atta Mills to set a good example for once. “The President has always been on a high morale ground, pontificating against insults and lies in the body politic. Yet, around him, people are deliberately concocting stories to run down their political opponents.


“When Ms. Benyiwa-Doe admitted before Parliament that she had no evident when she accused the NPP flagbearer of drug dealings, some of us thought the occupant of the Castle would have dispensed with her services as a Minister.”

Mr. Quansah said he was disappointed when the President missed the opportunity to set an example for all to learn from. “Luckily, the Head of State has been presented with another golden opportunity by his own nominee for the Eastern Region.


“If the President is to be taken seriously, he should withdraw the nomination of Mr. Victor Smith immediately, Victor Smith is a very bad example for building a ‘Better Ghana Agenda’,” Mr. Quansah said.


Before the Appointments Committee, Mr. Smith promised to be decorous in his pronouncements as a Regional Minster. But, Mr. Quansah insisted it was too late in the day to mend his ways.


At the National Democratic Congress (NDC) rally at Mantse Agbona at the weekend, President Mills continued with his appeal to all and sundry to desist from insults and peddling of lies as political tools. At the same rally, speaker after speaker mounted the podium and insulted political opponents and spewed lies. The President brought no one to book.


During the vetting, answering a question by Hackman Owusu Agyeman on whether the visit by some security personnel to former President Rawlings’ residence posed any risk, Mr. Smith said he was worried by the siege on the former President’s house in 2001. He thought it was risky for the life of the ex-President and his household.


He debunked suggestions that he was sacked from his duty as Special Aide to the former President for dishonesty and leis. He said it was true that he was sacked through a text message though.