The Quality Grain scandal - FBI probes American investor
Aburi Girls headmistress ordered to proceed on leave
Ex-Ministers comply with quit order
President orders C’ttee on exhumation of military officers
Poor attendance at vetting
Coup attempt on 15/5/01?
Michael Sousoudis grabbed
Osafo Maafo’s plea in US
SSNIT owns VANEF-STC
Rawlings & Co. trapped
Police harass ‘sick’ Mallam Isa
More rot in SSNIT exposed – 13 billion cedis down the drain
Ghana to enter the heart of France
Kufuor hosts Gbagbo
HIPC will harm Rural folk – NDC
The Quality Grain scandal - FBI probes American investor
The Daily Graphic carries that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is investigating an American woman accused of embezzling $6 million from a $20 million investment project in Ghana and for which the country has initiated action to seize the rice farm the money was meant for.
Already, Juliet Cotton from Duluth, USA, is defending herself in Gwinnett Superior Court against a lawsuit brought by her former partners, claiming her luxurious lifestyle bankrupted Quality Grain, the company founded to grow rice in Ghana.
Cotton confirmed in court last Thursday that she is under criminal investigation by the FBI.
Ghanaian officials also said on Thursday that they were instituting legal action to take over what’s left of the rice farm Quality Grain Company never completed.
The Quality Grain scandal is a hot political issue in Ghana and has been in the headlines for sometime now.
“We are initiating the process to take the company over,” said Usurla Owusu Adjei, a personal assistant to Ghana’s Attorney-General, Nana Akufo-Addo.
In a telephone interview on Thursday, Adjei said she expected the action to be completed by the end of May.
Ghana’s Attorney-General also took steps to recoup some of the $20 million the country was forced to pay to South Trust and other banks that lent Cotton money to start the farm.
The Ghanaian Government blames the Quality Grain affair on the past administration and has launched a fraud investigation into high-ranking former officials who dealt with Cotton according to last Thursday edition of the Ghanaian Chronicle.
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Aburi Girls headmistress ordered to proceed on leave
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has directed the Headmistress of Aburi Girls Secondary School, Mrs Grace Ansah Otu, to proceed on leave with immediate effect whilst investigations into a case of sexual harassment at the school continue, The Daily Graphic reports.
In addition, the GES has directed that all the disciplinary actions the school intends to initiate against the students involved in the case be suspended.
The GES has further interdiction Daniel Agyarko Yeboah, the teacher at the centre of the controversy.
The Director-General of the GES, Mr Alex Tetteh-Enyo, in a statement issued on the matter assured the public that measures are being taken to forestall such incidents in the country’s educational institutions.
The investigations centred on alleged cases of sexual harassment leading to student unrest at the school.
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Ex-Ministers comply with quit order
The Ghanaian Times says some of the ex-Ministers of State, their deputies and other government functionaries have complied with the ultimatum given them to leave their bungalows by Friday April 27.
Out of 12 bungalows visited on Saturday by a Task Force of the Ministry of Works and Housing nine had been vacated by their occupants.
Members of the Task Force during their rounds retrieved the keys to some of the houses from the househelps of the former government officials.
Mr Asiedu Nketia, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mr George Quainor-Mettle, NDC Propangada Secretary, and Mr Sam Garbarh, had left by the time the Task Force arrived at their bungalows.
Six others, Mrs Ama Benyiwa-Doe, former Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Alhaji Nayon Bilijo, former Deputy Minster of Lands and Forestry, Dr Asuako Ntomo Attakora, former Deputy Chief of Staff and Presidential Staffer, Mr Moses Asaga, former Deputy Minister of Finance, Alhaji M.A. Seidu, former Minister of State at the Office of the Vice-President, and Mr Mike Hammah, former Deputy Minister of Roads and Transport, were moving out as the Task Force arrived.
However, Mr James Ammissah, Secretary to the former President, General Arnold Quainoo, and Dr S.B. Arthur former Deputy Speaker of Parliament who claimed they had not been served with quit orders, were given some days to sort themselves out and leave.
It will be recalled that Mr Kwamena Bartels, Minister of Works and Housing, issued the ultimatum during an interaction with newsmen in Accra on April 24.
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President orders C’ttee on exhumation of military officers
President J.A. Kufuor has directed that a five-member Committee should be established to organise the orderly exhumation and retrieval of the bodies of senior military officers who were executed in the events of the June 4 Uprising.
The committee, according to a statement issued in Accra and signed by the Government Spokesperson, would be made up of a representative each of the military, prison, medical, a civil servant and State Attorney.
This followed the granting of a request made to the President by the widows of the senior military officers that the bodies of their dead spouses are returned to them for a fitting burial.
The President expressed the hope that successful conclusion of the committee’s work would permit the country to bring down the curtain on one of the many sad events of its history.
Another statement said that Cabinet has directed that the property of the late Prime Minister, K.A. Busia, should be rehabilitated prior to its transfer to his widow, Madam Naa Mokor Busia.
Additionally, the Labone (a suburb of Accra) property, originally given by the state to Madam Fathia Nkrumah, widow of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, is to be restored to her.
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Poor attendance at vetting
The Independent writes that despite the extensive publicity and ample notice given in the media about the beginning of the vetting of the President’s nominees for Deputy Ministerial positions last Thursday, there was a poor showing by members of the Appointments Committee.
Out of the 26 members of the committee, only 12 turned up at the vetting of the Deputy Ministers designate.
The poor showing reportedly, is unprecedented in the committee’s sittings since it started public hearing after the House had been sworn-in on January 7, 2001.
Speaking to the paper after the sitting, a member of the committee who pleaded anonymity expressed his disappointment at the attendance describing it as discouraging, but he was however, hopeful that members would place the committee’s work above personal interests and to attend the subsequent vetting sessions to make its work a success.
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Coup attempt on 15/5/01?
The Accra Mail says even as President Kufuor continues to enjoy the affection of those who voted him in power to bring about positive change, others are planning to oust him, not through the ballot box in December 2004, but through the barrel of a gun as soon as possible. Possibly, as early as May 15, 2001, the 22nd anniversary of the coup attempt that first brought ex-Flt. Lt. Rawlings to public notice.
The paper says it picked up the “hunuhunu” from sources close to the presidency, which means at least that the state security agencies are aware of any goings on and preparing to confront any destabilisation moves from any quarter.
It said its own investigations, has however picked up scents on a most surprising alliance in the diabolic plan.
“This time, it is disgruntled Northerners and Fantis who are grouping to inflict damage on the republic,” the Mail said adding that, “only 100 days into the administration of a freshly elected government…it is most disturbing indeed for any news of a coup d’etat to be doing the rounds, even if only in rumour form.”
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Michael Sousoudis grabbed
According to The Guide, the Police in Accra are questioning Michael Sousoudis, a relative of former President Rawlings over a large cache of ammunitions and military gear discovered in his house on Saturday.
The weapons, concealed in a biscuit box and placed under a satellite dish on the roof of his house at Cantoments in Accra, were recovered during a search operation.
Sousoudis is currently being held in police custody while further investigations continue to ascertain how he came by the items and why he did not surrender them to the authorities during the two-week moratorium granted by the Ministry of Interior.
The weapons include an AK 47 assault riffle with six loads of magazines as well as three fragmented grenades and three smoke grenades.
A statement issued by the police said the search team further discovered at the outer house of the residence, a P-Berreta pistol with 50 pieces of fiochi ammunition, six pieces of 900 powergel explosives, two military bullet-proof jackets and a military cap.
Sousoudis’ house was search about two months ago during which quantities of ammunitions were seized and he is also reported to have carried a gun tucked in his sleeve to President Kufuor’s residence while in the company of Kofi Wayo, the American Businessman and NPP parliamentary candidate for Ayawaso East who lost to the NDC.
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Osafo Maafo’s plea in US
“Please help us! We have a very serious (economic) crisis. The situation at home in terms of managing the economy is very uncomfortable”.
This, The Ghanaian Chronicle says was the appeal by Minister of Finance Yaw Osafo-Maafo to about 250 Ghanaian residents of the United States and African-Americans last Saturday night.
According to the Akyem-Oda MP, who became the Finance Minister barely four months ago, Ghana’s economy is in dire straits.
The Kufuor administration did not only inherit an ailing economy on January 7, it also inherited a country that had already qualified to join the league of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), painful as that fact may be to Ghanaians home and abroad. “I am not saying we are HIPC. We were already HIPC”, Osafo-Maafo noted, adding that HIPC is a statistical qualification that Ghana’s economic performance had long made it eligible to join.
He was addressing the stakeholders of the Ghanaian economy during a meeting at the Ghana Embassy in the US. Ghanaians abroad, most of whom live in the US and the UK contribute about $300 million annually in remittances to Accra.
Osafo-Marfo, Mensah and the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BOG) Dr. Kwabena duffuor are in the US national capital as leaders of a delegation to negotiate Ghana’s HIPC programme with World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials.
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SSNIT owns VANEF-STC
The Ghanaian Chronicle says one of the sticking controversies over the ownership of what is now popularly called VANEF-STC can now be told after several months of cross verifications.
The former First Lady whose name has been bandied about in certain circles has no financial interest in the business initiated by one of the young and enthusiastic Bible pushers whose clients included powerful NDC top movers like Ms. Sherry Ayittey.
Reverend Korankye Ankrah confirmed his interest in the VANEF deal in a discussion with this reporter after the collapse of the charismatic Churches-for-Atta-Mills-for President project, which at the time was supported actively by well known Bishops like Reverend Charles Agyin Asare of World Miracle Church International and the beleaguered Bishop Dr Nicholas Duncan-Williams.
Chronicle established that the VANEF Consortium won the bid for the purchase of STC from the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) after a hotly contested effort that was also mired in controversy. Mr Kwame Asante & Co. now part of the local Arthur Anderson Consulting, acted as advisers at the time.
After waving the famous American Greyhound bus name under everybody’s nose as strategic partner for the deal, VANEF failed to find the cash to proceed in the acquisition and rather turned to SSNIT.
In discussions with Rev. Korankye Ankrah in January, the impression was created that his group was going to own the STC business entirely after retiring a loan they had taken to fund what was initially perceived to be a take-over.
However, it has now emerged and established independently that the package presented to SSNIT did not go the way it was expected as SSNIT with Mr Charles Asare, the Director General in the driving seat, rather turned the deal on its head in favour of SSNIT.
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Rawlings & Co. trapped
The Criminal Code Article 179 (a) as amended by the NDC dominated Parliament and signed into law by ex-President Jerry John Rawlings in 1993, classifies acts of negligence leading to the loss of funds to the state as a “special offence”
“Any person through whose wilful, malicious or fraudulent action or omission – the State incurs a financial loss; or the security of the State is endangered, commits an offence,” the law unambiguously states.
The Public Agenda says ironically it is this very law that seems to have caught up with the former President, his Vice President, Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills and some of their Ministers over their role in the loss of 140 billion cedis ($20 million) to the State through the Quality Grain project.
A famous trial currently taking place in Accra has the above stated law as its basis. This is the trial involving Gavor and co of the Bank of Ghana over the alleged fraudulent withdrawal of $1.5 million from the Bank by Hajia Baby Ocansey.
The acting Executive Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Brian Sapati, whose outfit did the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Quality Grain scandal told Public Agenda on Thursday that a docket for the Attorney General’s fiat on the case is being finalised.
SFO’s report holds Nana Ato Dadzie, Rawlings’ Chief of Staff, Kwame Peprah, former Finance Minister, Alhaji Ibrahim Adam, ex-Agriculture Minister, the agriculture Ministry’s Chief Director, Samuel Dapaah and Dr. George Sikpah-Yankey legal advisor of the Finance Ministry directly responsible for the loss of the money.
Rawlings and Prof. Mills were not mentioned in the report but their role in “this extra-ordinary tale of negligence and recklessness” raise significant questions, Nana Akufo-Addo, Attorney General and Justice Minister (A-G) said at a press conference on Wednesday.
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Police harass ‘sick’ Mallam Isa
Typical of their disrespect for human rights and wilful punishment of people even before proven guilty, the police over the weekend ordered former Sports Minister, Mallam Yusif Isa, to their headquarters in Accra for further questioning, the Free Press says its investigations have revealed.
Mallam’s lawyers led by Alhaji Nuhu Billa, a retired judge will appear in court today to begin the defence of the ex-Sports Minister, who is reportedly ill at the moment.
Free Press investigations at the police headquarters revealed that the police led by one Inspector Hope kept Mallam Isa waiting on Saturday for nearly an hour apparently to ask him about the missing $46,000 though a committee had already published a report on the scandal.
The report itself had raised more questions fuelling controversy on whether he police investigations committee had compromised the truth given the speed with which it concluded its work.
The paper says its investigations indicate that the committee might have been subjected to severe pressure from some powerful forces in league with the “real crooks” at the Ghana Football Association to nail the Mallam.
We are under severe pressure from the top to wind up this investigations so don’t blame us”, a source close to the committee quoted police Superintendent Salaam Issaka a member of the committee as saying.
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More rot in SSNIT exposed – 13 billion cedis down the drain
The Dispatch reports that it is becoming increasingly clear that the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) is in deeper trouble than anyone would have ever imagined.
An April 2001 Audit Report commissioned by SSNIT has revealed another bombshell: by last month, SSNIT had already spent 13.6 billion, (about $1.94 million) on an Electronic document Management System, a project the Report said would not serve the best interest of SSNIT. Two principal characters mentioned as allegedly being responsible for this 13 billion cedis mess were the immediate past Director-General of SSNIT, Mr Charles Asare and the Managing Director of MASAI, Mr Eddie Annan.
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Ghana to enter the Heart of France
President J.A. Kufuor said last week that if there is a country in the world that is strategic to Ghana, it must be France.
According to the High Street Journal, this is because Ghana finds itself in a sub-region full of Francophone countries so that if Ghana “must succeed in our ambition to be the gateway to this powerful sub-region, then it is necessary that our country finds a way into the heart of France so that from there we open the gate into this region.”
The President said this when he inaugurated the Ghana-France Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (GFCCIA) on April 24, 2001 at Novotel.
The President said he was particular, in spite, of his heavy schedule that day, to be present to “put the big stamp of the Presidency of Ghana on the inauguration of this chamber,” thus giving it his blessing.
He assured members of the chamber that his government was going to work through the chamber to make ECOWAS a reality.
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Kufuor hosts Gbagbo
Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo will pay an official visit to Ghana on Wednesday and Thursday at the invitation of President J.A. Kufuor, the NPP News reports.
The two-day visit, the very first of its kind to be hosted by President Kufuor will provide the two leaders the opportunity to discuss bilateral issues and cement Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire relations.
President Gbagbo’s visit will complete President Kufuor’s policy of ensuring excellent relations between Ghana and her immediate neighbours through face to face meeting with Presidents of those countries.
While in Ghana, President Gbabgo will visit various places of attraction in Accra and Tema and attend a durbar of chiefs and people of Asanteman at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi.
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HIPC will harm Rural folk – NDC
The Upper West Region National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Caucus has called on the NPP government to reconsider its position on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) since it will make life unbearable for people living in the rural areas, The Ghanaian Democrat reports.
It explained that the HIPC initiative has left the country with virtually no developmental options for the rural areas.
The leader for the parliamentary caucus, Mr Edward Salia, who is also the Member of Parliament for Jirapa Constituency said in addition to the economic hardship the people will undergo under HIPC, the country has to wait for more than six years before the slightest impact of it could be felt..
Mr Salia, who was addressing a news conference by the caucus at Wa on Tuesday, said the social cost and impact of HIPC, especially for the low-income region, exceed the alleged benefits.
He said under the HIPC initiative, all subsidies are removed, leading to hikes in prices unbearable for the ordinary Ghanaians in the rural areas.
Mr Salia explained that the net effect of the initiative is that fewer of the people in the region could afford to send their children to school.
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