UCF reacts to NPP

UNITED CADRES FRONT OF GHANA (UCF-GHANA) REACT TO THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY (NPP) ON TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL REPORT ON CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX

PRESS RELEASE

The United Cadres Front of Ghana (UCF-GHANA), has read with utter indignation the pettiness with which the New Patriotic Party (NPP) reacted to the latest Transparency International’s (TI) latest report on progress made on the fight against corruption.

We particularly refer to The Chronicle of Monday, February 1, 2016, with a front page headline “NDC can’t claim glory over TI’s report - NPP”. We consider the statement very petty and very shameful as well as seeing the NPP’s desperation in an election year.

A statement attributed to the party’s Communication’s Director, Nana Akomea, sought to create the impression that but for the so-called pressures coming from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) such as Occupy-Ghana, Imani and some individuals, notably Martin Amidu and Anas Aremeyaw Anas, government wouldn’t have acted on issues of corruption.

What the UCF-GHANA wish the likes of Akomea to know is that granted his claim is anything to go by, then the Government of Ghana under H.E. John Dramani Mahama, should be patted on the back for listening to complaints from the ground and acting on them – rather than the insinuations being shamelessly cast.

We are by this communication forced to go back to the NPP’s days in government when whistles were blown by some Ghanaians, and in some cases their own members, but their government sealed its ears with whatever material by refusing to investigate them – safe, the Dr. Richard Anane’s case. Some of the scandals the NPP refused to investigate are below listed:

• On June 28, 2007, Ghanaweb – sourcing The Enquirer newspaper, had this caption, “Government officials are looting state coffers – Koi Larbi”. The write-up captured the former Member of Parliament, Agyare Koi Larbi, in his own verbatim lamentation as saying: “There is ample evidence that government officials are inflating government contracts to enrich themselves. Those exercising executive authority in the country now should know that one day they will have to account for the financial bleeding going on around us, and live up to expectation. Those who are supposed to talk about the rot in the system are behaving as if they do not exist whilst the financial bleeding continues unabated”;

• On April 16, 2006, Ghanaweb sourced the Palava newspaper with the headline “The 1,950,000,000.00 bank deposit…” It was a follow-up story that dwelt on a then Local Government Minister, Charles Bintim, who had deposited that colossal amount in the High Street Branch of the Barclays Bank. The paper wrote that the account was opened in July 2005 and the amount deposited in tranches thus: July 2005, 1,000,000,000.00 [old cedis]; September 2005, 450,000,000.00 [old cedis]; October 2005, 50,000,000.00 [old cedis]; March 2006, 450,000,000.00 [old cedis];

• Ghanaweb on March 7, 2006, again took its source from the Palava on one of the most scandalous rental agreement a state agency could ever engage. The Palava report was taken from audited accounts of the Energy Commission by the Auditor General’s Report at the time. The report had it that the Commission went in for an uncompleted building which is now identified “FREMA HOUSE” and paid 7.3 billion old cedis as rent advance for five years. Additionally, 7.6 billion old cedis between October, 2002 and February, 2003, to finish the conversion of the “Frema House” without any agreement. These are in isolation of some smaller payments that were made to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kofi Kofi Asante, and other extravagant expenditure that go beyond a billion old cedis;

• November 15, 2006, Ghanaweb, now taking its source from jfm (JoyFM) with the headline; “¢36bn Spin Money: Editor Denies Benefitting”. It was a developing story which was first reported by The Insight newspaper on Monday November 13, 2006. Egbert Faibille Junior, Peter Mac Manu, John Boadu, Kofi Jumah, amongst a number of 21 others were to benefit from the booty which included the installation of advanced digitized communication gadgets and other freebies to do propaganda for the then government. The body which was known as Government Media Monitoring Team was what this colossal figure was spent on;

• Friday, December 21, 2007, Ghanaweb, referenced The Stateman newspaper thus, “Who owns the 400 VW saloon cars? The report had it that there was a mystery surrounding the importation of 400 VW saloon cars parked in East Legon. The ‘INVISIBLE’ importers were at large then but all the vehicles later vanished. The cars which were delivered by Auto Parts Ghana Limited was alleged that it was the Government of Ghana which ordered them for use by the National Identification Authority. However, according to The Statesman, a well-placed official at the Authority denied knowledge of government ownership. Contact was also made to the Ghana National Procurement Agency which also denied knowledge of government making any procurement of such cars;

• The Chronicle newspaper was referred to on Ghanaweb of April 2, 2009 as having a story captioned “Ex-Speaker Hughs collected per diem for wife”. In that reportage, a former Member of Parliament, Hon. P.C. Appiah Ofori poured his heart out on the former Speaker of Parliament Ebenezer Sekyi Hughs on the looting of almost everything in his official residence. Beyond that loot, Hon. Appiah Ofori alleged on Kyzz 89.7 Fm from which interview The Chronicle culled, stated that that “…the Parliamentary Planning Committee held a conference and budgeted for a total amount of 5.4 billion old cedis, but strangely enough, the total expenditure of the conference eventually turned out to be 11.6 billion old cedis, exceeding [by] 4.2 billion old cedis. What is more, the Speaker presided over the said conference and imported hand bags for sale to each member who attended the conference, a situation he described as unpaliamentarily [un-Parliamentary] and frowned upon by the regulation of the House”;

• The Haruna Esseku “KICK-BACK” debacle is still fresh in our minds.

May we ask Nana Akomea if any of these allegation were ever investigated?

The above are but a few of such filthy things that happened in Ghana during the Kufour regime. The UCF-GHANA, is bringing them up because of the impression created by Nana Akomea and the NPP that it was group/individual pressures that compelled the NDC government to take act and for this reason government should not share in the success story.

We are indeed finding it extremely hard to see logic in what the Communication Director is driving at. In any case granted that Nana Akomea’s position is acceptable, is it not better that the government has held the “bull by the horns” as compared to their regime that stated that they could not go public with their corrupt members to make the party unpopular?

The NPP’s praise for the OccupyGhana group is rather laughable to us. The acts of corruption occurred when members of these CSOs had their mouths padlocked and never saw anything politically evil for them to comment on. However, if they could not form their so-called anti-corruption groups at the time, what prevented their individual activism against the canker? Akomea referred to Messrs, Martin Amidu and Anas Aremeyaw Anas, mounting individual pressures on government which to the NPP the government was forced to act.

The Occupy-Ghana and IMANI saints are not sincere anti-corruption fighters – their main aim is to influence regime-change for the NPP to come in and their bound to fail.

Nana Akomea also posited that anytime TI rates the NDC government as performing badly on corruption perception, it debunks the findings but when rated well – it is full of praise for it. We wish to send them back to November 7, 2006, when Ghana scored 3.3 point on a scale 10, by the same Transparency International, the then government came out to rubbish it. Mr. Frank Agyekum who was then government spokes-person on governance was the fellow who issued a statement challenging TI.

Ghana, a few months back was rated as Africa’s second most corrupt country. The government issued a caveat and the mischief that influenced the publication was corrected.

What Nana Akomea pretend not to know is that President Mahama and his government either commissioned or sanctioned the investigations that exposed the corruption in the National Service Secretariat, National Health Insurance Scheme, Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial, Development Agency among others.

We cannot fail to appreciate the contribution of CSOs and individual citizens who have played their role in the fight against corruption but we cannot deny the strong will of the NDC which emboldened state institutions to expose corruption no matter who is involved. This is the commitment that has brought about the progress.

Signed

Comrade Edward A. Mba – 0244284795

(Ag. Chairman)