RAWLINGSES HIT ROAD By Charles Takyi-Boadu Posted in Daily Guide on Friday, September 21, 2012 Related Stories At the time leading members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) were jubilating over a supposed endorsement of President John Mahama by former President Jerry John Rawlings, the wife of the NDC founder,... ...Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, was busy meeting members of the newly formed National Democratic Party (NDP) in Kumasi. Mrs. Rawlings arrived in the Ashanti regional capital on Sunday, hours after leaving the Legends and Legacy Ball held at the International Conference Centre on Saturday evening where she dropped hints of her intentions to run for the flagbearership position of the NDP. Her husband, reports said, was also on his way to the Ashanti Region to throw his weight behind his wife who has been tipped by the leadership of the new party to lead them for the December 2012 polls. Mr Rawlings is worried about the growing corruption in the ruling government. According to him, the practice was so deep that it had literally held the resources of the country to ransom by a handful of people while the majority of the people suffered. “The corruption that is going on is so deep. Some aspects of these corruptions are literally holding your national resources to ransom by just a handful of people. I’m not here to poison your minds at all,” he told Volta chiefs at a meeting in Ho on Wednesday. Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE and corroborated by the NDP youth leader in the Ashanti Region, Thomas Andy Owusu, indicated that upon arrival in Kumasi, Mrs. Rawlings first met interim executives of the NDP in the region at an undisclosed location. That, according to the source, was to enable her to know at firsthand the level of progress that had been made on the grounds and to strategise for the way forward. Among the several places she visited were Mampong, Ejisu Juaben, Effiduase and Kumawu where she met members of the party. The NDC breakaway party is said to have opened offices across the region considered the heartbeat of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Everywhere she went, she was said to have gone to greet the chiefs and people of the area and was given a rousing welcome. According to Andy Owusu, initial attempts to get the Prempeh Assembly Hall proved futile since they were frustrated by the authorities in charge. They were compelled by circumstance to rent the SSNIT Hall where Mrs. Rawlings addressed party faithful in the region. Owusu indicated that what was scheduled to be a meeting between Mrs. Rawlings, who is also the president of the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM), and party executives virtually turned into a rally of a sort since supporters of the NDP besieged the SSNIT Hall where the event was taking place. The hall, which is estimated to have a seating capacity of about 300, was said to have been filled to capacity to the extent that Mrs. Rawlings had to struggle for passage to the rostrum in order to address the gathering. Coming Events Nana Konadu was said to have told the gathering that at the time she was talking, her husband, the founder of the ruling NDC, was also in the Volta Region organising people to join the NDP and that when she left Kumasi, Mr. Rawlings would also visit the region in the coming days to assess things for himself. An obviously elated Nana Konadu was said to have promised them that the NDP would be launched in Kumasi since she was stunned by the structures the party executives had put in place. Meanwhile, Operations Director of the Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR) Ernest Owusu Bempah has dismissed claims that Mr. Rawlings had endorsed President John Mahama. The loud-mouth FONKAR chief, who spoke to myjoyonline, said the ‘old man’ had not changed his perception about the ruling administration hence he could not have endorsed the NDC flagbearer. The spokesman for Mr Rawlings, Kofi Adams, who also spoke on the subject, indicated that though President Mahama had brought a new lease of life into the ruling NDC, Mr. Rawlings was yet to decide whether or not to join its campaign. Mr Adams told Joy FM that it was only the campaign team of the president that could persuade his boss to join the campaign trail.

NDC Blows $1m On Enemies

Published in Daily Guide on September 24, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

 

President John Mahama

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) appears to have spent over $1million of the taxpayers’ money on hounding political opponents.
The money included an amount of $686,000 given to a supposed ‘Professional Group’ aligned to the NDC, contracted by the Mills/Mahama administration, to hound perceived ‘enemies’ of the government for their roles in the Ghana@50 celebrations.
This was after a High Court discharged the two members of the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani and Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, on charges of willfully causing financial loss to the state, an action brought against them by the state.
A letter from the desk of deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice Ebo Barton-Odro to the Finance Ministry, is calling for the payment of the money to the shadowy NDC group.
Apart from the actual contract sum which was $70,000, the group was also paid a daily allowance of $2,000, bringing payment to $686,000.
The group’s membership is not known but it is believed to be made up of NDC members of which one was recently elected to stand as a parliamentary candidate for the ruling party in the Volta Region, after defeating a minister of state and incumbent MP.
Comprising NDC lawyers assembled by the Attorney General, they were paid the sum to enable them to look for enough grounds to specifically prosecute former Chief of Staff, Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani who was Chairman of the Ghana@50 celebrations and Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
A letter dated April 26, 2012 and authored by a Deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Ebo Barton-Odro, who has been at the center of payments of a number of controversial judgment debts, is authorizing payment from the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. The letter stated that the payment was in “respect to services rendered in the provision and procurement of Jubilee toilets and sampled souvenirs for the Ghana@50 celebrations.”
It is this same ‘Professional Group’ whose dealings with the state are shrouded in secrecy that was paid a whopping $300,000 for a similar investigation into the infamous Isofoton case which also ended up in a mirage. Its advice to the state on the matter was ignored and payments effected courtesy of Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, a deputy Minister of Information, who lobbied for the Spanish company to get payments for alleged wrong abrogation of contracts.
Before they could even submit their final report on the Isofoton case, the office of the Attorney General had issued instructions for payments to be made to the company as judgment debt.
The contract agreement dated October 7, 2010 and entered between the state, represented by Barton-Odro, and one E. D. Manful, described as Managing Consultant, and witnessed by one Elikplim Agbemava, a lawyer at the Ministry of Justice and Mercy Akyeampon, a Secretary to the ‘Professional Group’, stated among others, things that  “the client (state) shall provide to the consultant (Profession Group) such as a list of cases to be periodically investigated by the consultant, with timelines for completion as agreed between both parties.”
Apart from that, the Professional Group was also required to provide the state all “reasonable support as may be deemed necessary for reasons of confidentiality, security, expeditious dispatch of assignments, legal requirement, and propriety.”
For the sake of secrecy, it was also required to, as it were, “handover to the client (state) all reports prepared in the course of each assignment and shall not keep any working papers and reports relating to the assignments on account of confidentiality and sensitivity but shall turn such materials over to the client.”