Bawumia had to get 'hurt off his chest' - Hamid

Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia did nothing wrong with his response to former President John Mahama in connection with the latter’s description of the national digital addressing system as “419” – to wit, fraudulent, Minister of Information Mustapha Hamid has said.

Dr Bawumia described Mr Mahama as “ignorant” and “clueless” about the GhanaPostGPS application developed by local IT firm Vokacom as part of the digital addressing project which cost $2.5million.

According to the Vice-President, Mr Mahama’s administration was rather the “hallmark of scams”.

After his response, Dr Bawumia told his audience that he needed to have got that “off his chest” before delving into the substantial reason for their gathering.

Dr Bawumia’s response has been described as “harsh” by political science lecturer Prof Ransford Gyampo and highly criticised by former appointees of the Mahama administration including ex-deputy communication minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu, who said Dr Bawumia was behaving like a “heartless serial caller”.

Responding to the criticisms against the Vice-President’s response, Mr Hamid said: “I don’t think the Vice-President did anything wrong, he quite frankly did not respond in equal measure.”

“I’m just begging to differ that the Vice-President’s response was inappropriate,” Mr Hamid told Kojo Yankson on Accra-based Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, 7 November.

According to him, “If somebody calls you fraudulent, really, quite frankly you would be hurt and if you are hurt, you would have to get the hurt off your chest, and, therefore, to say that: ‘I need to get this response off my chest’, in my view, is OK.”

“What are the things that he says? He says we know 419 when we see one. ‘All these GHS200m ‘akonfem’ scheme and SUBAH and GYEEDA, those are the things which in my estimation are 419. I’m not the 419 fellow.’ So, I don’t get it; why it is the Vice-President who has done wrong but it’s OK for a former president to call a sitting Vice-President fraudulent? Well if that’s somebody’s standard, that’s OK, I don’t want to argue with them but I’m saying I beg to differ,” Mr Hamid said.