Konadu Fired Up

Published in Daily Guide on October 18, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

 

 

Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings

The flag-bearer of the National Democratic Party (NDP), and former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, has said she is not perturbed by the string of resignations that has hit her party in the past couple of days.
Nana Konadu told a group of journalists in Accra yesterday that she was in the presidential race to win the elections in December and take over from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Nana Konadu is expected to file her nomination today ahead of the deadline for all presidential and parliamentary candidates for the December 7 polls.
Unconfirmed sources said Martin Alamisi Amidu was likely to be Nana Konadu’s running mate.
The wife of the NDC’s founder insisted that she was in the presidential race not necessarily because she wanted to split the vote of the NDC as being speculated.
The NDP, barely four months ago, broke away from the NDC amidst serious rifts between factions in the party.
“We cannot engage in destructive political banter while the people of Ghana are not certain whether their lights will be on today or not; we cannot engage in destructive political banter while a mother has to wake her six-year-old child up at 4am, feed her child hurriedly in order to get her child to school by 8am, and get herself to work by 9am, because very little effort has been made to ease the traffic congestion in our cities,” she stated.
At the media encounter, Mrs. Rawlings stressed the need to chart a new future for Ghana since “we cannot be politicking while our youth have no jobs, or while access to clean potable water is still a luxury, or while eating three times a day for the ordinary Ghanaian is still a dream”.
“The ordinary Ghanaian works very hard to earn a living, and yet hard work today is not rewarded because of the growing culture of nepotism and less [emphasis] on meritocracy” for which reason “we need to build a nation that respects honest hard work” because “people of this nation deserve the best, not better,” noted the NDP flagbearer.
“We cannot continue to engage in destructive political banter while people cannot live a life with value. We cannot continue this way because we do not have the luxury of time.
“Let us place people over politics, and start empowering people of this nation today, not tomorrow and definitely not in another four years. Today!” she stressed.
She emphasised the need to create equal access to education, potable water, healthcare, adequate housing, insisting that “every hard working Ghanaian has the right to own his or her own home.”
For her, the country’s most valuable resource is not its gold, cocoa or its oil, insisting, “We, all of us, are the most valuable resource of this nation.  Our youth; our women; our children; our men; our elderly are the most valuable resource of Ghana, and therefore deserve to be invested in.”
To this end, she emphasized, “let us together take that bold step; let us seize this moment to chart a new future for Ghana”.
Carpet Crossing
Meanwhile, confusion has rocked the camp of the Rawlingses, with the latest being a resignation of two of their trusted aides, Emmanuel Saint Osei and Alhaji Mohammed Nasiru.
The duo announced its decision Monday afternoon on Accra-based Hot FM and quickly declared an unflinching support for President John Dramani Mahama, to the surprise of many, especially its other colleagues in the Rawlings camp.
Until their resignation, the two played active roles in the Rawlings camp, with Saint Osei serving as a protocol officer in Mr. Rawlings’s office, running errands for the former President whilst Alhaji Nasiru was also an active member of Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR) which seems to have metamorphosed into the Mrs. Rawlings-led National Democratic Party (NDP).
Nasiru was an aide to Ekwow Spio-Garbrah before pitching camp with FONKAR.

Martin Amidu

They add to the several numbers of individuals including the likes of Dela Coffie, Ruth Sedor, Sidi Abubakar, Chris Dugan and the NDP’s interim general secretary, Dr Joseph Mamboah-Rockson, who have left the stables of the Rawlingses to join forces with government.
Somewhere last year, Dela Coffie, who used to be a member of the FONKAR and a staunch critic of the NDC administration, said President Mahama, who was then vice president, was so corrupt that he likened him to a person so easily enticed with money, like a fowl being lured with corn.
But many, including FONKAR’s Operations Director Ernest Owusu-Bempah, believe the two and their other colleagues who have fallen out with them were influenced by monetary considerations to take the decision.
He therefore described the action of the latest two to leave the camp as “an act of betrayal at the highest level” which he said would affect them politically.
Owusu-Bempah stressed the belief that his colleagues were bought since, “looking at what is happening, nothing has changed since Mahama took over; so what has gone wrong that these comrades of mine will just suddenly switch when things are getting worse and worse every day and the true principles that we fought for are still there.”
Owusu-Bempah, who is now a deputy director of communications of the NDP, was of the opinion that his former compatriots had hanged themselves politically.
“…They’ve committed political suicide and they have written their political obituary,” he said.
Re-affirming his support for Nana Konadu, Owusu-Bempah said if Judas Iscariot had known that betraying Jesus Christ would lead to his glory being magnified, he would not have gone ahead with the decision.
“…some of us can never be bought; I am telling those people who are going round thinking money can buy everybody’s conscience that some of us can never be compromised,” he told Okay FM.

Chinese Company Bribes NDC Over $43m Tax

Published in Daily Guide on October 17, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

 

President John Mahama

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been caught in a deal that smacks of fraud with a Chinese company, Hauwei Technologies Ghana Limited.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, spokesman for the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), Davis Opoku produced documentary evidence to prove how the Chinese company, which office is located on the 5^th and 6^th floors of the Adwoa Adjeiwaa building in Osu, has been funding the activities and operations of the NDC, contravening the country’s electoral laws, apparently in exchange for $43million tax exemption.
The documents, which included invoices and plane tickets for some government officials, indicated that Huawei had been printing campaign paraphernalia, T-shirts, cups, caps and key holders, worth millions of dollars, for the NDC campaign.
These include the printing of 50,000 pieces of t-shirts at $395,000, in addition to 60,000 pieces of assorted paraphernalia including key rings (holders), posters and banners worth $42,040, which were shipped into the county between May and July 2012.
All these campaign materials had the picture of the late President Mills embossed on them.
DAILY GUIDE has learnt that new campaign materials for President Mahama from China had arrived.
Section 23 (1) of the Political Parties Act, Act 574, states that “only a citizen may contribute whether in cash or in kind to the fund of a political party.”
Section 24 of the same Act states that “A non-citizen shall not directly or indirectly make a contribution or donation or loan whether in cash or in kind to the funds held by or for the benefit of a political party and no political party or person acting for or on behalf of a political party shall demand or accept a contribution donation or loan from a non-citizen.”
It also emerged that the company had allegedly been financing the foreign travels of some key and influential members of the ruling administration and their families’, chief among them being Dr. Cadman Mills, the brother and economic advisor of the late President Mills.
The National Security Coordinator, Lt Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, some ministers and senior members of the NDC administration are reported to have also benefitted from the largesse of Huawei, which flew them- all expenses paid- to China.
In return, the NDC government granted the Huawei group a tax exemption of $43 million.
The tax exemption recently generated a furore in Parliament, with some MPs kicking against it.
At that time, it was not known that the Chinese company, which has been cited for fraud in other countries, had been secretly financing the ruling party which was pushing for the tax exemption.
Huawei was also awarded what the leadership of AFAG believed could arguably go down as one of the ‘juiciest contracts’ to be doled out by the NDC administration-  the E-Government platform project worth a whopping $127.5million  and a shocking GH¢1 as tax for this contract.
Track Record
The company is said to be involved in several international scandals which have led to the termination of its contracts in countries such as the USA, Australia and India, for security reasons whilst the Algerian authorities were said to have banned its operations somewhere in June this year following a bribery scandal which involved the company and some executives of the state-owned telecom.
AFAG indicated its preparedness to lodge an official complaint with the police to commence investigations into the dealings of Huawei and the ruling NDC.
In view of the fact that political parties were public entities, AFAG also asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to publish the annual report of the NDC to ascertain whether these donations had ever been reported.
Until standing issues were addressed, Davis Opoku said, “AFAG will not rest”.
If found culpable, Huawei and the NDC could face hefty sanctions, in view of the provisions of the Political Parties Act 25 (1).

JJ Booms At NDP Congress

Published in Daily Guide on October 11, 2012

Jerry John Rawlings

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The National Democratic Party (NDP) seems to be making serious incursions into the fold of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), with the latest catch being the founder of the NDC, former President Jerry John Rawlings.
Mr Rawlings is said to be waiting for the NDP congress to unleash venom on the NDC leadership, especially ‘the old evil dwarfs’ who have virtually hijacked the party he founded with his blood.
A day after he indicated his preparedness to support his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings’s decision to run for the flagbearership position of the NDP, a breakaway party from the NDC, the former President’s name has popped up as the one scheduled to be the ‘special guest of honour’ for the NDP’s national delegates congress slated for Saturday, October 13, in Kumasi.
A full-page advertisement placed on page 53 of yesterday’s issue of the state-owned Daily Graphic newspaper said Mr Rawlings, who had been linked to the new party, would take centre stage at the congress.
Sources said Mr. Rawlings had already accepted the invitation and confirmed his participation.
Interim General Secretary of the party Dr Rockson Mamboa has indicated that the event, expected to take place at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium, would see not less than less than 7,500 members and 2,500 delegates attending.
Unlike other congresses that elect executives, the NDP scribe said, “we are going in there for the national executives and then we can also endorse our flagbearer.”
Mr Rawlings is therefore expected to storm the place in the company of his wife before the event starts at 8am on Saturday, with the support of his aides.
Nana Konadu is contesting after incessant appeals from the grassroots.
Rawlings told journalists at a CDD programme on Tuesday, “I would support her (his wife) as I do for a good number of candidates. If she intends to stand for the new party, I guess it might be right for her to resign from the NDC.”
He said, “Frankly, I will support any party with a high level of credibility and integrity, and that I know they (NDP) have.”
The former President added that “that doesn’t mean I am leaving the NDC either.”
Rawlings’s short speech at the NDC manifesto launch could best be described as a dress rehearsal of what he is expected to say at the NDP congress on Saturday.
For him, even if what his wife was embarking upon “does not amount to much, the very fact that they are putting together a party with a high level of moral credibility is an investment for the future”.
NDP Here To Stay
The Interim National Youth Organiser of the NDP, Dr David Sunu, said the party would not “stumble and fall” as its detractors had hoped for but would grow to restore integrity to the nation’s politics.
The election of the flagbearer, he explained, would put “the doubting Thomases to shame”.
“…For all those who believe in restoring integrity to the politics of this country…for all those who think that participatory democracy is the way to go, for all those who believe that we all must contribute not only during elections but also at every step of the developmental process; and that politicians must not take us for granted, they all must come on board the agenda of the NDP,” because “our nation will be our future,” he stated.