Messy Mills Must Be Careful Not To Open Pandora Boxes And Floodgates

------President Ata Mills is reported to have explained that the rational behind his directive for investigations into the Wayome’s judgement debt saga was not to embarrass the beneficiaries of such debts but to get into the bottom of how those liabilities were caused and that the issue was rather who incurred the liability and who must be held for causing financial loss to the state and urged EOCO to look into that too.---

My reaction to this current news item is that Mills has to be careful that he does not take Ghana into a ditch.

Ghanaians are tired of unhelpful and costly executive decisions especially those which are clearly seen to be based on vindictiveness and attempts to balance some imaginary equations or aimed at unnecessarily shoring up fading political fortunes- without the overall interest of the nation in mind.

The ongoing brouhaha about the huge judgement debt in favour of Alfred Woyome is seen by many as baseless and in fact was nothing short of blatant fraud, aided by Woyome lies and misrepresentations and even a huge case of causing financial loss to the state. A lot of questions are standing unanswered on this Woyomegate:

1). Since all correspondence directing the payments from Attorney General office to the Minister of Finance were copied to castle Chief of Staff, can President Mills feign ignorance of the payments? 2). Is the Minister of Finance saying he did not request for Cabinet or the President’s decision or comments on the directives and he just went ahead and effected the outrageous payments? 3). Why did AG fail to defend this huge misrepresentations? 4). What is this-- ‘I have no case, I have a case, I have no case, I have a case’-- business of the AG on the scandal? 5). How did Woyome as a person succeed in his suit without any Contract Engagement documents to show. 6). How could a mere letter of Intent or comfort letters be substituted as a contract? Where are the conditions which governed the Woyome/Ministry of Sports so called contract, for references and contract management guidelines. 7). What specific clauses in the specific Contract document did Woyome and his lawyers quote to support their abrogation claim? 8). Why are the technical men and experts — Engineers, Quantity Surveyors, Contract Administrators and Managers at the Ministry of Sports, Ministry of Finance, Architectural and Engineering Services Corporation not talking and thereby creating the vacuum for social commentators, serial callers, journalists, foot soldiers, politicians to confuse, rant and twist minds of the public with infantile and childish comments ?

The questions which arise are too many and I will stop here and make my points. This Woyomegate has succeeded in shaking the foundations of the so called chastity, integrity and uprightness of President Mills and his inept government such that Mills pledge that he would keep corruption in an arm’s length is turning to be a huge hoax and a mirage.

An election year is just around the corner and Mills/NDC are scared stiff of the negative fallout of the scandal as far as their election fortunes are concerned. The Woyome scandal which is about the most blatant and gigantic fraud since independence clearly borders on fraudulent conduct on the part of Mills himself and his Ministers and Officials. What a shame! What a shame! Mills fortress is clearly melting fast under circumstances he does not believe and understand.

The Soda-Cocaine has added to the misfortunes. The $20m NDC Headquarters matter, which NDC is forging documents to regularise, is still hanging. So they should look for scapegoats. So they should clutch at straws in their drowning rivers of fraud. So they should find a way to shift the blame onto NPP - because to them Ghanaians are so gullible that they will always believe –SHEEP ARE COWS--, SKINNY GOATS ARE FAT RAMS.

So President Messy Mills’ hot idea now is to balance the equation by focusing on the persons whose actions caused the liability pursued by Woyome-- as observed in the opening paragraphs. Obviously his target is former President Kufuor’s and his cabinet which terminated Waterville Contract, which Woyome had taken advantage of.

This is the infamous Achina Brentuo agenda which was earlier floated to test the waters as a forerunner of this Mills’ executive action to probe Kufuor on the Waterville contract to confuse the issues. (Insiders are aware that the Achina Brentuo sack order was just a ruse since his actions were just part of the grand Mills vindictive plan to rope in Kufuor).

And this is where I caution Mills that he is being misadvised as he is heading for the ditch. Many executive actions in this 4th republic have led to avoidable liabilities. A case in point is Rawlings reckless and irresponsible order for demolition of the Airport hotel in the 1990’s, which attracted huge judgement debt and which was paid by Kufuor’s government.

Are we to believe that, as an extension to Mills vindictive and mad pursuit of vengeance on this Woyome non-existent contract issue, Rawlings could also be harassed in future for his reckless demolition order which caused the state several millions of dollars??

Even, presently an aggrieved foreign contractor is suing Mills government for damages of more than $25m for wrongful termination of the Cape Coast stadium contract which Kufuor’s government awarded.

In fact, there are several instances of wrongful termination of contracts by Mills administration. And are we now going to sue Presidents, Ministers, and Government Officials etc- for liabilities arising from such aforementioned executive actions?

Wayome has defrauded the state in some incomprehensible circumstances. Let his unique case stand alone.

Somebody must advise Mills to be careful not to open Pandora boxes and the floodgates needlessly to satisfy party hacks and foot soldiers.

It will not help him. It will not help anybody. President Mills must know he will not permanently be President and he must watch it.

Messy Mills, haven’t you learnt any lessons from the fruitlessness of the Ishmael Yamson probe you set up to look into the emoluments and ex-gratia of executives of Kufuor’s regime? A word to the wise-------------

John Yawose