NPP Jabs Nyaho Over Mahama Saga

Published in Daily Guide on October 3, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

 

Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is fighting one of its leading members and former Ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro, Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, over his statements regarding the Ibrahim Mahama-Merchant Bank loan saga.
The party said Dr Nyaho Tamakloe could stay off in the quest to recapture power if he was not ready to put his shoulders to the wheel.
Last week, the tough-talking NPP chieftain descended heavily on some members of his party over their decision to question a deal involving Engineers and Planners, a company owned by the brother of President John Mahama, Ibrahim Mahama, which is believed to have contributed to the near collapse and sale of Merchant Bank to a South African company, FirstRand.
In the heat of his anger, Dr Nyaho Tamakloe described those behind the press statement that was read by Deputy Communications Director of the NPP Yaw Buaben Asamoa, in disparaging words, referring to them as foolish and stupid since he saw their action as tantamount to a ‘pull him down’ syndrome.
But at a press conference in Accra yesterday, National Youth Organiser of the NPP Anthony Karbo and convenor of a forum dubbed ‘The People Must Know’, had this to say: “If Dr Nyaho Tamakloe says that we are stupid, we are foolish; okay, this is the party he belongs to, so he is also proudly part of it.”
He was not surprised at the tantrums thrown by Dr Tamakloe on Asempa FM when he called into the live programme since according to the NPP youth organiser, the former diplomat was related to the vice president’s brother.
Dr Tamakloe is said to be a brother of Ibrahim’s late mother, Joyce Tamakloe.
Apart from that, he considered the man as a person who was detached from the general happenings in the NPP.
Much as he respected his opinion, the NPP youth organiser stressed the need for Dr Tamakloe to come to terms with the fact that the NPP as a party was bigger than him and for which reason “he cannot superimpose himself on this party”.

Anthony Karbo

Karbo asked rhetorically, “Who will not defend his relative if he buys a plane?”  He said, “I will defend anybody in my family who buys a plane because it’s very far from here to my hometown so one can engage in that way.”
He served noticed, “We in the party are not going to allow anybody who has his own interest or has his own personal affiliation with anybody to delay force.”
He stressed the firm belief that “the few days left are going to be very very engaging”; therefore “anybody who is going to be a distraction for us on our way; we will please ask you to step aside and allow us to prosecute our victory agenda”.
The Bank Deal
The NPP group is daring President Mahama to come clean on the bizarre circumstances leading to the sale of Merchant Bank, a fully-owned Ghanaian company to the South African company if he has no hand in the deal.
“The forum for ‘the people must know’ is asking President Mahama to help us unravel the mystery surrounding the sale of the Merchant Bank,” it said.
This was in view of the fact that Engineers and Planners company is indebted to the bank to the tune of GH¢57.2m, representing 19.1%, adding to its total burden of GH¢330million owed the bank before it was sold to the South African at GH¢170million.
Though Merchant Bank was sold to FirstRand for 746.2 million South African Rand, the equivalent of $91million for a 75 percent stake in a deal that was approved by the government, the NPP believed that it was the indebtedness of the president’s brother’s company that led to the virtual collapse of the bank since the loans were non-secured.
Private Jet
The president’s brother recently bought a private plane worth about $30million. The plane was recently used to ferry former Nigerian strongman President Olusegun Obasanjo to broker peace with NDC founder President Jerry John Rawlings.
The loans have become a bad debt in the bank owned by contributors of the state-owned pension scheme, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).
The NPP youth organiser therefore believed that “there are some unseen hands pulling some strings to further the interest of Mr. Mahama against the collective interest of all”.
The group sought to know why Merchant Bank was sold and why “Mr. Mahama has blatantly failed to honour his obligations to the bank since the NDC assumed office in 2009?” and “why Mr. Blaise Mankwa, a former Managing Director of Merchant Bank who got sacked by the Board of Directors for facilitating an unsecured loan to the tune of $46million to Mr. Mahama has been rewarded with an ambassadorial position by President John Dramani?”
The group also asked “why Mr. Jonas Koranteng Smith, the union chairman who was responsible for loan recoveries was sacked after testifying in court against Mr. Mahama’s Engineers and Planners?”
They equally sought to know why in spite of the fact that government had denied selling Merchant Bank, there was no official record produced to support its claim, wondering, “Why should state institutions like SSNIT and SIC life play lead roles in ring-fencing the debt of a private citizen of Ghana?”

Gbevlo Storms Airport Over $10m Cocaine/Wee

Published in Daily Guide on October 2, 2012

 By Charles Takyi-Boadu & Stephen Zoure and Raphael Adeniran

 

Lt Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey, National Security Coordinator

Checks at the Aviance Cargo village at the Kotoka International Airport, where drug traffickers have in recent times been using for their booming drug trade, have revealed that the cargo scanner at the facility has been tampered with.
According to reports available to DAILY GUIDE, the scanner broke down suspiciously soon after some containers had gone through it, a reason for which the drug lords were able to beat the security checks.
The latest arrests prompted the National Security Coordinator, Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo-Lartey (rtd), to make an unannounced visit to the Aviance Cargo village at the airport where the 1.5 tonnes of cannabis and cocaine busted at the Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom originated last week.
The cannabis, which was concealed in fresh fruits and vegetables, weighing around 1.5 tonnes with a street value of £4.3 million ($8.6million), was busted at the Heathrow Airport.
A day after the wee arrest, British officials announced the interception of another drug (cocaine) consignment smuggled from Ghana, weighing 7.5 kg with an approximated street value of £750,000 ($1.5million).
The National Security Coordinator stormed the place in the early hours of Saturday around 9am in a Rambo-style in the company of other security capos, in a bid to uncover the mystery surrounding the circumstances under which the seized cannabis and cocaine departed the airport without being detected with all the security scanners in place.
Gbevlo’s first port of call was the warehouse where goods earmarked for export are usually kept.
He, then in the company of one General Mankarta, an official of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) in-charge of security at the cargo village, moved straight to the said scanner which could not detect the busted drugs to inspect the facility and afterwards went to the various security check points to assess things.
The two looked quite disturbed about the security breach which led to the bust of the cocaine and cannabis haul and its implications for the country in view of government’s claims to have put adequate measures in place to curtail the drugs trade.
It is unclear what the National Security Coordinator told the security men manning the various checkpoints at the cargo village but sources said the move was to ostensibly put some fear in workers at the place in a bid to tighten security and to avert any future occurrences.
Booming Drug Trade
Ghana, in the past week, has been in the international news for drug trafficking to the United Kingdom and other countries.
The immediate past United States Ambassador, Donald G. Teitelbaum, had criticised the growing narcotic drugs trade in Ghana.
“Narcotic trafficking, narcotic uses are threats to all of us and Ghana is increasingly becoming a transit point for narcotics. It is also pretty clear that the use of narcotic drugs is on the increase in Ghana,” Ambassador Teitelbaum told a group of Ghanaian journalists at the US Embassy just before he left the country after the end of his duty tour in August.
Though some workers at the Aviance claimed the scanner in question developed a technical fault on the fateful day when the drugs left the country, others also believed it was deliberately rendered useless to enable the narcotics to go through without detection.
The Executive Secretary of the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB), Yaw Akrasi Sarpong, was fuming on radio when he alleged that security officers at the cargo village who were on duty on the day of the drug bust were strangely asked to go home.
The NACOB boss pointed accusing fingers at Airport Profiling and Security Services, the company responsible for assaying goods before loading onto outbound aircraft.
In the case of the busted cannabis at the London Heathrow Airport, it was loaded onto a Virgin Atlantic airline.
Broken Down Scanner
Credible information indicated that on that fateful day, only one cargo went through the scanner at the cargo village and cleared for export.
The rest, including those that contained the cannabis, according to sources, did not go through the scanner because of a supposed technical fault but were cleared for export.
It is believed that a drug syndicate, in league with some workers at the cargo village, was behind some of these narcotics trades.
The man behind the busted drugs is believed to have fled the country to an unknown destination.
Sources in the UK also hinted that the smugglers usually used one of the weakest security links at the Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3, where most flights from Ghana often offloaded their cargo.
Heathrow has tightened security at certain terminals upon realising that some flights from Ghana preferred to offload their goods through those places.
Border Force officials at the Heathrow afterwards indicated that the busted cannabis in tape-wrapped compressed packages within boxes was the biggest cannabis seizure in three years.
Investigations have been launched and five officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), Kamaldeen Awudu, Worlanyo Fiano, Ibrahim Badoo, Marvin Amon-Kotei and Ben Kusi Asante have been rounded up by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in connection with the seizure. They have however been released on bail.
A supervisor at Aviance was also picked up on Friday evening for interrogation.
Resignation
The embattled Executive Secretary of Narcotics Control Board, Yaw Akrasi Sarpong, has indicated that he might resign over the image-denting narcotic incident.
DAILY GUIDE gathered that preliminary conclusions from police investigations had cited official complicity and negligence of all the other security agencies at post.
Mr Sarpong said he was ready to take full responsibility for lapses in his outfit: “I am a strong believer in God, I take full responsibility.”

Confirmed! Konadu For NDP

Published in Daily Guide on September 27, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

 

IT’S FINAL! Mr and Mrs Rawlings

It is now confirmed that former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings is behind the formation of the National Democratic Party (NDP), a breakaway party from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The core supporters of the NDP are disgruntled members of the NDC.
The NDP has also rubbished media reports that NDC founder, former President Jerry John Rawlings, would be campaigning for the ruling party, saying that he was in the boat of the breakaway party.
Even though Nana Konadu continues to remain tight-lipped over whether or not she was behind the new party, initial speculations had linked her as the brain behind the NDP without any concrete proof.
However, Mrs Rawlings has been captured on an audio recording conscientising NDP faithful, telling them why they needed to join the new party to chart a new course.
The former First Lady is believed to have made these and other comments during a meeting with NDP sympathisers at the SSNIT Hall in Kumasi when she visited the Ashanti Region somewhere last week.
The NDP presidential hopeful is expected to begin her Brong Ahafo regional tour soon as part of the party’s attempt at winning more souls.
Mrs. Rawlings, who spoke Twi, expressed disappointment in the current leadership of the NDC which she accused of destroying the party they all toiled so much to form.
“You all know that we used our strength and hard work to build the NDC but they have used their strength to collapse it; that is what hurts me sometimes,” she noted.
In that regard, she noted, “If we have come today; we want you to know that we are not following a negative course…that is why we have the dove as our symbol.”  She extolled the virtues of the bird—a sign of peace, unity, togetherness, honesty and closeness.
She asked supporters of the newly formed party to help wrest power from the NDC in the upcoming general elections.
Nana Konadu said, “They say they are a Congress and that everybody is welcome to join; so you can’t discriminate against any person and say that this woman can’t join…”
She therefore implored that “before you retire to bed everyday, I beg all of you to remember to go on your knees and pray for the NDP; so that we become victorious to enable us to come and change the country with good policies for things to be better for you, your children and grandchildren and every Ghanaian.”
She claimed a dove does not begin looking elsewhere upon the death of its male partner.
That, according to Mrs. Rawlings, “signifies something–that we are determined to be faithful to people and an aspect of faithfulness is the reason why I have brought my baby today”. She explained why the party came up with the red, green, white and black umbrella with the eagle on top as the symbol of the NDC, making nonsense the assertions of some individuals who claimed to have brought the idea.
The Rawlings Factor
Meanwhile, a statement issued by the Communications team of the NDP and jointly signed by Dr Hilarius Asiwome Abiwu, Dr David Sunu and Ursula Tagoe, has denied claims by leading members of the NDC that Mr Rawlings had endorsed President John Mahama and would therefore campaign for him in the upcoming elections.
“This is practically impossible, and is only a cheap propaganda by the ruling NDC to use the name of the founder whom they have literally ostracized from the party to energise their inactive campaign machinery,” the statement said.
They talked of loss of integrity and deep-seated corruption in the NDC, wondering whether those were the qualities the NDC wanted Mr Rawlings to be campaigning for.
“It is the candid view of the NDP that the question of which party former President Rawlings will campaign for in the December elections is a foregone conclusion as the core values of the NDP and those of President Rawlings are deeply interlinked,” the statement noted.
Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, deputy Minister of Local Government and Campaign Coordinator of John Mahama 2012, had told the media that Mr Rawlings would lead the NDC campaign, a move the NDP has described as a big joke.
The leadership of the NDP has entreated their numerous supporters and the Ghanaian public to ignore the propaganda schemes of the NDC and be rest assured that President Rawlings would campaign for the NDP for the December elections since “our formation is geared towards restoring those values he loved and remains steadfast to defend and protect”.