NDC Gurus Fight Over Chop Chop

Posted: Daily Guide | Monday, 21 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
A big fight has broken out in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) between the Central Regional Minister, Ama Benyiwa-Doe and the party’s communications director in the region, Bernard Allotey Jacobs, over the award of building contracts.

Ms. Doe, a former National Women’s Organizer, accuses Mr. Jacobs of hatching a plot to get her removed from office because she refused to give him contracts.

Media reports suggested that some individuals and groups have petitioned President Mills to remove Ms. Doe claiming she was the most inefficient government representative of all time in the Central Region.

But Benyiwa Doe, nicknamed ‘Ama Chavez’, believes “Allotey is behind all this”.

“If you read the newspaper story very well, it gives lead to Allotey Jacobs as the source of the story.”

The Central Regional Minister told Peace FM that this could be the result of strained relations between her and Jacobs, a Board member of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

According to her, she believed Allotey, who claims to be a contractor, was behind the negative reports on her “because he wanted a contract that does not exist and I couldn’t get it for him.”

She added, “He has gone to almost everybody who matters from the Central Region to the capital Accra, petitioning them that I should be removed from my position” –a claim Allotey Jacobs has since denied.

Apart from that, she said “he has gone to Mr. Quayson, the Chairman of the Revenue Agencies Board, he has come to Kwesi Ahwoi and Ato Ahwoi with the same allegation; so I have ample evidence that he is behind all this… this is his handiwork. Meanwhile, he was a CPP man and this is a CPP newspaper so the links are there.”

Allotey Jacobs, who calls himself an ‘educated fisherman’ however thinks Benyiwa Doe is only trying to create unnecessary attention for herself because he has done no such thing as she claims.

Though he admitted having a strained relation with the Minister, he denied having anything to do with the newspaper publication since his accuser could have equally planted the story to make it look as though some people including himself wanted her out.

Mr. Jacobs declined to comment on whether or not he had any such discussions about the possible removal or reshuffle of Benyiwa Doe, with the Ahwoi brothers, who are said to be the de facto leaders of this country.

He also declined to comment on whether or not Benyiwa Doe was competent enough to occupy the position of Central Regional Minister.

He rejected suggestions that he was eyeing Benyiwa Doe’s position, hence his alleged interest in seeing her out.

On the issue of the contract, the ‘educated fisherman’ said “it’s so funny that the contract came from the Ministry of Education and not from the region,” noting, “The person who helped me in getting that contract was George Lawson, our Deputy General Secretary who was then the Special Assistant to the Education Minister, who gave me that contract.”

For this reason, he said “it was not her who gave me that contract.”

Cocaine Arrests Snuffed

Posted: Daily Guide | Monday, 21 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) believes that President Mills and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) government have not been telling Ghanaians the truth about the fight against the drugs’ trade in the country.

In the ‘state of the nation’ address last week, President Mills said his government had acquitted itself very well two years after declaring war on the drugs’ trade in the country, noting “we will not relent in our fight against the narcotic trade and I believe (that) the majority of Ghanaians are happy that these days they don’t wake up to daily stories of cocaine here, cocaine there, cocaine everywhere.”

But Buabeng-Asamoa, who is a deputy Communications Director of the party, says the President appeared to project the fight against drug trafficking through Ghana as a political battle against the NPP.

He made these comments when he appeared on Joy FMs news analysis programme ‘Newsfile’, alleging that the Mills administration has been deliberately suppressing information about drug arrests for political purposes.

Mr Buabeng-Asamoa, lawyer, quoted paragraphs 841 of the 2011 budget statement which stated “…the Board (NACOB) recorded 32 cases of narcotic drugs, arrested 38 culprits and seized a total of 483.6 kilograms of various narcotic drugs” to support his claim, noting that “these seizures were in 2010 alone and could be the tip of the iceberg.”

He therefore asked “where are the 483.6 kilograms of drugs?” since according to Mr Asamoa, the NPP government passed two very important laws in the fight against drug traffickers which the NDC government seemed to have ignored.

“Because of influence, there is a suspicion that cocaine suspects on bail either run away or bribe their way.

When the law was passed under then Attorney-General Joe Ghartey, 20 suspects were convicted in 2 months. It is alleged that against this law, the prosecution is said to have demanded bail”, he stated.

According to him, another law was passed which made it obligatory for cocaine to be destroyed as soon as it was seized after a sample had been shown to the court.

That was also to avoid the situation where the exhibits could get missing being transported to court daily for hearings, asking “so has the government destroyed the 483.6 kilos of cocaine?”

Other panelists on the programme bemoaned the fact that drug cases and arrests were not being reported in the media thus giving the impression that the NDC had created that since it came to power the drug trade had suddenly stopped.

Editor-in-Chief of the ‘New Crusading Guide’ Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako Jnr indicated that if the government continued to play politics with sensitive issues such as that of drug control, then the fight against the menace would not be successful.

Between 1994 and 1999, Kwaku Baako alleged that over 300 cases of cocaine-related drug issues were not clearly dealt with, an indictment on the NDC.

He stressed the need for the issue of cocaine to be dealt with in a nationalistic manner so that everybody would be involved.

Otherwise, he said the NDC’s attempt to paint NPP black would only worsen the problems of enforcement.

Whilst welcoming the President’s announcement of his decision to re-open investigations into the infamous MV Benjamin cocaine case in which 77 parcels of the drug got missing from a vessel, he said it was sad that the President seemed misinformed that the suspects in that case had been tried, convicted and jailed.

‘Crucify Me’

-Asiedu Nketiah
Posted: Daily Guide | Saturday, 19 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Barely 24 hours after coming under severe criticism for an alleged conflict of interest in the ongoing Bui Hydro Power construction project, General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu-Nketia also called General Mosquito, has gone on the defensive, trying to justify his role and that of his block manufacturing company.

Asiedu-Nketia said if his company was supplying blocks to the Bui Dam Project, and some Ghanaians did not understand why, they should crucify him. The NDC chief scribe’s conflict of interest situation had generated a furore, with people accusing him of abusing his position.

This was after the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bui Power Authority (BPA) and First Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Fred Oware, exposed how a block manufacturing company owned by the NDC General Secretary had been awarded a contract to supply blocks for the entire resettlement project of the BPA, though he was and continued to serve on the company’s Board.

General Mosquito had earlier threatened to expose former President Kufuor for allegedly failing to implement the hydro power project and particularly in the funding of the Bui City project – a claim both individuals had vehemently denied.

But on Thursday, an obviously bruised General Mosquito had a hell of time defending himself, hopping from one radio station to the other denying any wrong-doing in securing a contract with the BPA though he himself admitted not informing the Board about his decision to do business with the organisation.

Mr Asiedu-Nketiah told Peace FM he could not fathom why people were trying to make his contract with the said company look awkward since, in his opinion, it was not the first time somebody serving on a company’s Board had managed to secure a contract with the same company.

He however admitted establishing a branch of his block manufacturing company at the Bui project site only three months ago.

He said he noticed the seeming difficulties by sub-contractors of the Bui project in procuring blocks and therefore decided to extend his block factory, which was originally in his hometown, Seikwa, closer to the project site for the benefit of the subcontractors.

In the face of the probing questions he was being asked, he said anybody who felt he had done something wrong should go and crucify him.

His defence was that he did not source the contract directly from the Board and could therefore not be cited for conflict of interest, since he got the contract from some of the companies subcontracted to work on the resettlement project, after which the board, of which he is a member, would then supervise.

That notwithstanding, the NDC General Secretary boasted of having been able to create jobs for the residents of the area, especially the youth, most of whom were currently into the block manufacturing business.

He therefore could not fathom why Mr Oware and his colleagues in the NPP who had been pushing for the inclusion of local companies in the construction of the STX houses, were raising issues with the award of contract to his company and citing him for conflict of interest.

This, he said, was because as a Board member of the BPA, he was not under any contractual obligation to provide blocks for the project, neither were the contractors under any compulsion to buy the blocks from his company.

That aside, General Mosquito said his blocks were of higher quality and therefore higher priced than those of his competitors, hence the wide patronage.

He later accused the Kufuor administration of not doing proper work on the Bui project, saying they either failed to conduct feasibility studies on the project, claiming nothing was left behind for the new managers.

But Mr Oware stood by his claim that prior to leaving office in May 2009, they had made provisions for funding for the Bui City with $28million set aside, of which $5million goes into employers permanent facilities, $12million for irrigation structures and $11million for facilities for resettlement as contained in the Bui Hydroelectric, EPC/Turn-key project contract volume 1 schedule of payment, subsection scheduled no. 17 provisional sum, which means that there wouldn’t be any need for extra cost as the government was pushing for $118million.

Additionally, Mr. Oware indicated that “there was a sum of $12million under schedule no. 2 road and bridge works which was to be applied to road works within the proposed city”, noting with emphasis, “A copy of the business plan (on the planning and development of Bui City) was handed over to the new Chief Executive Officer as part of the materials I left behind.”

He could therefore not fathom why the current government had approached Parliament with a request for additional funding of $118million to complete the hydroelectric project and submitted that “as an EPC/Turnkey contract, any additional funding to complete the project should have been out of the question”.

At the time of leaving office, Mr. Oware claimed there were three other passed certificates totaling over $97million which were unpaid, attracting penalties and therefore increasing the project cost, indicating that “the late payment has also led to delayed completion date”.

But the Bui Hydro Power Project which was started by previous NPP administration to build and operate an efficient hydroelectric plant that would generate electricity at base price to spur industrial and agricultural revolution in Ghana, impacting the lives of millions, is currently cash-strapped.

Mr. Oware however blamed the NDC government since adequate measures were put in place by the previous administration to forestall any such drawbacks which had led to government demanding an additional $118million to complete the hydroelectric project.