4 Names Drop In Race For Veep

Published in Daily Guide on July 26, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

Just a day after President John Dramani Mahama took over the reins of power, interesting names have started popping up as likely contenders for the position of vice president, following the vacuum created by his elevation occasioned by the death of President Atta Mills.
President Mahama presided over an emergency cabinet meeting where he prayed for the repose of the soul of his former boss.
However, jostling for the coveted slot of vice president has intensified, as names being bandied about on the corridors of power include Paul Victor Obeng, a former presidential advisor and current chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
Others are Trade Minister Hannah Tetteh; Lands and Natural Resources Minister Mike Allen Hammah and Goosie Tanoh of the defunct National Reform Party (NRP) fame.
Apart from P.V. Obeng who comes from the Ashanti Region, the three others are from the Central Region and there are indications that the home region of the departed president may have the slot.
Mr Hammah who comes from Winneba appears to stand tall among all the names mentioned.
Strangely, former Communications Director for the late president’s campaign team, Seth Ohene Ofori said four days to the demise of President Mills, people had started jockeying for the position of vice president.

Goosie Tanoh and Mike Hammah

That notwithstanding, “I think he would look at it carefully. He will pick someone who is very competent, someone who can partner him to ensure that Ghana moves forward without any disruption,” he told Joy FM yesterday.
“I know President John Mahama very very well. I think he will pick someone that Ghanaians will be happy (with); someone who will meet the aspirations of Ghanaians; someone who can deliver and make the ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ a reality,” he said.
Asked whether or not it was true that President Mills was at a point in time considering stepping down- a reason for which people could be jostling for a possible vice presidential slot- Mr Ofori said, “It’s difficult to give you a yes or no answer, very difficult.
“Politics, you know, is quite an interesting thing. Any development comes with its reaction and definitely people try to look at the future and see where they can position themselves,” he noted.
But sources in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) have hinted that those being pushed by the ‘hawks’ in the party include P.V. Obeng and Agric Minister Kwesi Ahwoi (the youngest of the Ahwoi brothers). But moderates in the NDC are pushing the likes of Hannah Tetteh and Member of Parliament for Ellembele, Emmanuel Armah Buah.
Ekwow Spio-Garbrah’s name also popped up, but allegedly from a pastor and the Rawlings camp.
Another view gaining grounds in the party is not just the intention but the need to use the situation as an opportunity to extend an olive branch to the NDC founder and former President Rawlings by making his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings as the vice president to enable them to join the NDC 2012 campaign, which they have declined to be part of.
This is expected to meet a stiff opposition from the hawks in the party who feel the Rawlingses have already jumped ship with the formation of the National Democratic Party (NDP).
The president is set to meet the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NDC today to fashion out ideas on who to settle on as a possible vice president.
Cabinet Meeting
An emergency cabinet meeting at the Osu Castle was graced by senior party officials including NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia.
President John Mahama, ministers and senior party officials were all clad in red and black and in a somber mood.
The president prayed that the adversity that had hit the country shall be turned into an opportunity for the masses of Ghanaians.
President Mahama cancelled his day’s activities, including a trip to Tamale.

What Killed Mills – JJ Speaks

Published in Daily Guide on July 26, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu 

Former President Jerry John Rawlings has blamed handlers of the late President John Evans Atta Mills for not giving him proper counseling, which situation led to his sudden death on Tuesday.
Rawlings said President Mills’s death could have been avoided if officials of the administration were more open about his health condition.
“It was quite a shock to both my wife and I but it was not unexpected because he’s been battling the cancer for quite a while,” Mr Rawlings said in a widely broadcast interview on BBC yesterday.
Speaking from Congo Brazzaville where he and his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings were participating in activities marking the launch of Forbes Africa, Mr. Rawlings, founder of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), of which President Mills was leader until his untimely death, said, “Quite frankly, I think had he (referring to the late president) been advised and done something wiser earlier on, he could probably have survived for…I don’t know, another six-seven months I guess. This is certainly the wrong time for him to go considering that election is around the corner in December.”
 Mr Rawlings and his wife were in that country at the invitation of President Denis Sassou N’Guesso.
Information picked up by DAILY GUIDE from the presidency indicated that the late President Mills started shivering last Friday and the situation got worse on his birthday, Saturday July 21, when he turned 68.
He was however said to have been rushed to the 37 Military Hospital on Tuesday when he started coughing and vomiting blood.
Even as he was being rushed to the hospital, our information is that he was made to sign a letter to the Speaker of Parliament that he was going to Nigeria.
Consequently, Rawlings noted: “It got too tight; it got extremely tight and the poor professor has passed away.”
Asked whether he was concerned about the upcoming elections, he said, “yeah, both of them are, actually”, leaving the interviewer without a clue as to who the other person he talked about was- whether it was his wife who is said to be eyeing the presidency or leader of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo.
On the legacy Mills had left for Ghana, the former president had this to say: “He’s played his part. I think as my vice president, he was indeed one of the finest but there again, considering that the cancer affected both his eye and his ear.”
Mr Rawlings said, “He couldn’t sustain three hours per day; so it was naturally going to affect his performance and that’s why I think he would have done just as well or even better.
“The only unfortunately thing is that…some of the cold-blooded killings that took place before we came into office could not be re-investigated. I would have wished that he had really done that but let’s see what can be done with the time that’s left.”
On the question of whether he considered his one-time Communications Minister and newly sworn-in president, John Dramani Mahama as a man of vision who could make the country move forward, Mr. Rawlings was emphatic: “I don’t know but I hope so.”

NDC Plot Backfires

Published in Daily Guide on July 17, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
A press conference organised by government to supposedly expose the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the ongoing judgment debt saga, turned out to clear him of any wrongdoing.
Deputy Information Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa had served notice of government’s preparedness to expose Nana Addo’s involvement in a massive judgment debt scandal which eventually turned out to be his advice as then Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for government to pay an amount of $1.1million to the Great Cape Company of Switzerland.
What baffled most was that the substantive Minister of Information, Fritz Baffour, had to introduce his deputy minister, Ablakwa, to address the press conference whilst he acted as MC for the occasion.
Before his appointment as a minister, Fritz Baffour had told a gathering at La Palm Beach Hotel in 2010 that his constituents called him MC MP, indicating that he is known best at emceeing at public functions.
When Mr Ablakwa took the microphone to engage in political equalisation, he virtually ended up exonerating Nana Addo.  “We haven’t said that Nana Addo has engaged in any wrongdoing,” he said, indicating that it was an attempt to draw Nana Addo into the judgment debt saga.
Okudzeto, who is leading the NDC propaganda in the judgment debt conundrum, was answering a question on whether or not the NPP presidential candidate committed any wrongdoing in recommending the payment to the Swiss company.
Present were Deputy Interior Minister Kobby Acheampong and Kojo Twum-Boafo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB) and other members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) communications team and some party footsoldiers.

Fritz Baffour listening to Okudzeto Ablakwa yesterday

Ablakwa and his other colleague Deputy Information Minister, James Agyenim Boateng, quoted two letters dated April 18, 2001 and October 3, 2011 written and signed by Nana Akufo-Addo in which he sought to confirm the country’s indebtedness to the said company.
The Controversial Letter
In the recent of the two letters which they claimed was an indictment on the flagbearer in supporting the payment of judgment debt, addressed to Dr Nat Tanoh, which he copied then Attorney-General Martin Amidu and Finance Minister Kwabena Duffuor and captioned ‘Re: Letter and signature’; Nana Addo stated, “This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 20^th September 2011, requesting my assistance in the settlement of government’s long-standing indebtedness to Great Cape of Switzerland.
“I am somewhat disturbed by its contents, which have led to the unusual request contained in the letter. It is disconcerting that public record keeping has fallen into such straits that the files on this matter cannot be found either in the Ministry of Justice or in the Ministry of Finance. Be that as it may, it would be unconscionable on the part of government if its own poor record keeping is used to defeat legitimate claims of its creditors.”

Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa

He continued, “I have a vague recollection of the transaction, and can readily confirm that the signature on the letter ILD/SCR/002 dated 18^th April 2001, addressed to the Minister of Finance, attached to your letter, is indeed mine.
“I am also sending a copy to the Minister of Finance. I hope this is satisfactory for your purpose.”
This, according to Mr. Ablakwa, was an indication that “he (Nana Addo) had been busily advocating behind the scenes that the Great Cape Company of Switzerland be paid an additional $1,117,818.45 in what he calls Great Cape’s legitimate claims.”
When confronted with the issue of whether or not the NPP flagbearer indeed committed any wrongdoing, Mr Ablakwa said, “Indeed, we have said in the statement that we are not here to pass judgment. We are only applying the NPP’s logic on them that in the face of this new revelation, will all their standards apply… that if you agree with a company’s claim, if you say that the company has a legitimate claim on government then it means you are in for kickbacks, then it means that they are your cronies, you have share in it, you are a stealer and all of that.”
“We are only asking questions… that this is only a judgment or a liability press conference because as we speak, Isofoton was demanding $1.3million. These people are also demanding $1.1million and as the NPP flagbearer has said, it is unconscionable not to pay them. We have to pay them. It is another judgment debt,” he said.

Fiifi Kwetey’s Face-Off
Another Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Fifi Kwetey, who was also at the function, had a brush with Richard Sky of Citi FM when the latter questioned government’s condemnation of what it claimed to be “illegal abrogation of contractual obligations” when indeed the same NDC government had abrogated a petroleum agreement with a Norwegian company AKER ASA and Chemu Power Company Limited, in respect of the South Deep Water Tano Contract Area which was unanimously ratified by Parliament.
He sought to expose government’s double standards in accusing NPP of abrogating legitimate contracts.
Fifi Kwetey sought to rubbish his claim, treating it with pettiness whilst raising doubts about the journalist’s integrity, claiming that he was seeking to justify a wrongdoing.
The journalist described the deputy minister’s reaction as pedestrian, a comment which attracted condemnation from Mr. Ablakwa.
Interestingly, somewhere last year, Mr Ablakwa claimed on Radio Gold’s ‘Alhaji and Alhaji’ programme that government’s decision to abrogate the petroleum agreement with AKER SA had earned the country “over $1billion” as contained in the following internet link http://business.peacefmonline.com/industry/201108/60099.php
The unfounded accusation against Nana Addo, political analysts believed, was aimed at equalising the Woyome judgment debt scandal of GH¢51.2 million in which Woyome personally denied having any contract with government.