Bawumia is vindicated in the $14 million Vice-Presidential villa heist

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. English Department, SUNY-Nassau Garden City, New York February 4, 2017 E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

In Ghana’s parliament, the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is led by a certified plagiarist whose Master’s degree was withdrawn about a decade ago by the members of the Academic Council of the country’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana. In a robustly functional democracy, where the rule of law is prized and the integrity of public officials held in high esteem, there is absolutely no way that Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, the former Labor and Employment Minister, would have been voted for by his Tamale constituents to represent them in our National Assembly, let alone be selected as the Minority Leader of the main opposition party.

I knew that he was in solid possession of the proverbial smoking-gun, when Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, who is not known to speak without strong evidence, came public with the shocking announcement that the Akufo-Addo Administration had in its possession a document indicating that the outgone Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress had spent at least $ 14 million (in U.S. currency) in the construction of an uncompleted villa that was meant to become the official residence of all Vice-Presidents of our Republic.

Now, I find this revelation to be more than simply scandalous; it is incontrovertibly criminal. Which was why when Dr. Bawumia first broke the news, the leaders of the National Democratic Congress did what they have always done with inimitable finesse – put on a straight and brave face and vehemently deny the revelation through their clenched teeth, so as to make it seem as if the Simon Fraser University doctoral-degree holder in economics did not know what he was talking about.

Well, now the proverbial cat is out of the bag, or rather came out of the bag when the Communications Director of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akomea, appeared on a television talking-heads program scarcely a week later brandishing a copy of the document allegedly containing this patently scandalous sole-sourced agreement contracted by the Mahama Flagstaff House and a state-owned consultancy agency called the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited (AESL) – (See “Akomea Produces Documents to Back Claims Vice-Presidential Villa Costs $ 14 M” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 2/4/17).

This is nothing short of highway robbery, especially if one reckons the fact that the government of India-funded multi-purpose Jubilee-Flagstaff House, constructed during the tenure of President John Agyekum-Kufuor, is estimated to have cost some $ 50 million. I don’t see why a vice-presidential villa ought to cost more than $ 3-5 million, and that is stretching matters quite a bit. At any rate, in the case of the $ 14 million Mahama-initiated vice-presidential villa, we are talking about an official residence that may not necessarily be multi-purpose use in design. Which means that whoever happens to live in it, as Vice-President of Ghana, will still maintain his regular and permanent office at the Flagstaff House.

But, of course, this mini-edifice also tells quite another story altogether, and one that has more than a little to do with the much-touted criminal profligacy of the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress, and even much more to do with why the former President had mischievously continued to occupy his official vice-presidential residence, even long after he had been elected and inducted as the substantive Chief Executive of the land and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Sovereign Republic of Ghana. Of course, the notorious scofflaw would also shamelessly demand to be gifted the official vice-presidential bungalow, which he had prevented his own Vice-President, Mr. Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, from occupying as part of his “early” retirement package.

This is the man that the NDC members on the Parliamentary Appointments Committee (PAC) would have Ghanaians believe his cousin Ms. Otiko Afisa Djaba heretically blasphemed, when the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, on the hustings in the lead-up to Election 2016, matter-of-factly described as a congenitally “wicked” and “evil” personality who could not be trusted.

Well, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Akufo-Addo Administration would use the good offices of Dr. Akoto Osei, the Minister of Policy Monitoring and Project Evaluation at the Presidency, to assess the true cost of this $ 14 million act of naked robbery and promptly and swiftly bring the culprits to book. It also tells us just how prepared the Mahama Posse was to hang on to power come rain or hellfire. We shall be discussing this epic heist of a contractual compact in the near future, as and when it becomes pertinent and necessary.

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