Konadu Rawlings To Be ‘Bought’ Out Of Race; GH¢1m & Juicy Contracts As Bait?

Some National Executive members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NPP), some government officials, in concert with some former Ministers of State who served under the Presidency of Jerry John Rawlings who are yet to come to term with the now ‘germinated presidential inclinations’ of Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings are scheming to persuade her from contesting the flagbearership position of the party slated for July 8, 2011.

According to a highly-placed source within the national leadership of the ruling NDC, “both the leadership of the party and the government are so unsettled by her (Nana Konadu) intentions and subsequent resignation from her party executive position and are therefore bent on taking her out of the contest”.

Among the offers being proposed, according to the source, would be to give a company (name withheld for now) jointly set up by the Former First Lady and three of his children, some lucrative commercial and consultancy opportunities in the aviation, ports, oil and gas sectors.

There is also a proposal to increase the Ghanaian government’s commitment to facilitating and enhancing the development of the CALF Cocoa Factory jointly owned by the 31st December Women’s Movement commercial wing, CARIDEM and a private Chinese company, by requesting more Chinese government funding in addition to some appreciable level of State support for the project.

Another bait being considered, according to the source, is the possibility of deploying some National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) Personnel to work at the Nsawam Cannery; a company Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings and her 31st DWM/CARIDEM have an interest in. The thrust of that offer, according to the source, “is that the personnel from the NYEP would work in the company but their allowances and salaries would be absorbed by the state”.

It is also envisaged that Government would endeavor to provide some financial and logistical support to the Cannery via some financial instruments which the State makes available to the private sector through some local banking and financial institutions. Nsawam Cannery through CARIDEM was in 1997 during the administration of NDC (2) under President Rawlings and Vice President John Evans Atta Mills, a beneficiary of a huge loan facility under the Trade and Investment Programme (TIP) of the Ministry of Finance which was being managed by ECOBANK on behalf of the Government of Ghana.

Our sources at ECOBANK have intimidated that CARIDEM still has a huge outstanding obligations on both the principal and interest on that loan granted to the company in 1997.

The third offer, according to the source, is the proposal of refund all costs incurred by the Former First Lady in her preparatory work. “In fact, GH¢1m proposal would be put on the table in order to entice her and the FONKAR Group to abandon their suicidal mission”, the source added.

Leading the “Get Nana Out Of The Race” team, according to the source, would be “some former prominent Ministers who worked under her husband (Rawlings) and are in his good books and some Party Executives including some members of the Party’s Council of Elders”. The source was however evasive when pressed to mention some of the people involved but only managed to say that “Harry Sawyer would have been approached to lead the team but he is a bit incapacitated”.

He hinted that a retired General of the Ghana Armed Forces who has been closely associated with the Rawlingses since the days of the PNDC, might be contacted to facilitate the process of getting Mr. Rawlings to help persuade his spouse from pursing her much publicized presidential ambition.

Attempts to get reactions from Kofi Adams on behalf of the Rawlingses and Samuel Ablakwa for government, both proved futile as they did not answer their telephone calls.

Mrs. Rawlings, on Wednesday April 13, 2011, in a two-paragraph letter to the NDC’s General Secretary, resigned her position as a Vice Chairperson of the party; stating that her action had become necessary in order to “enable me respond to numerous calls on me to contest the flagbearership of the NDC when nominations are opened.”

Chief among groups and people calling on her to contest President Mills has been “Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings” (FONKAR), which has been at the throat of President Mills virtually calling him an “ingrate and incompetent”.

In the wake of her virtual declaration, a wind of endorsements for President Mills has swept across the nation, with Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Volta, Central, the Greater Accra, Northern regions of the NDC among others, declaring their preference for Prof. Mills to lead the party again in the 2012 elections.

But unfazed by all the overwhelming endorsements of the President, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, a few days after declaring her intention to run for the NDC’s Presidential slot, publicly disclosed that; her husband fully endorsed her bid to challenge President Mills.

According to her, she would not have taken the gigantic step to vie for the presidential candidacy of the NDC without former President Jerry Rawlings’ blessing.

Commenting last week on the flurry of endorsements received by President Mills from some party regional executives, Nana Konadu stressed that it was part of a grand scheme by the national executives of the party to give the President an advantage ahead of the party’s presidential primaries; but she was undaunted.