Press Review Ghana 05 - 02 - 2001
NDC man quizzed over cars
82 students sacked for poor performance
I haven’t visited Air Force Station - Rawlings
Accusations are wrong – Tsikata
SFO targeted Nduom, Sowu – says ex-Exec Director
The Witch-hunt has begun
Osafo-Maafo scores first victory
NPP women angry with Hawa Yakubu
US orders Ghana to pay 70b cedis
Action now! CHRAJ or TRC
NDC man quizzed over cars
The Ghanaian Times reports that the police on Friday stormed the company premises of the Deputy National Treasurer of the NDC, Baba Camara, to inquire about the ownership of 21 vehicles parked there.
“He was asked to produce documents covering the vehicles but he could not do so immediately,” it stated, indicating that Camara asked to be given time to contact Japan Motors where he bought the vehicles on Monday and forward them to the police.
A high-ranking police source told the paper on Sunday that Camara claimed ownership of 15 of the vehicles, including Land Rovers, Nissan Patrols and Nivas.
The remaining six, he said, belonged to other individuals.
One Nissan Pick-up had an NDC inscription, indicating that it belonged to the party.
The source said that the police were acting on a tip-off that the vehicles were being kept by Baba Camara without lawful ownership and, therefore, proceeded to investigate the matter.
It had acted promptly, fearing that the vehicles would vanish by next day if no investigations were instituted.
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82 students sacked for poor performance
Eighty-two students of the Wesley Grammer School in Accra, have been dismissed from the school for poor academic performance.
The students, from Forms One, Two and Three according to Times, failed almost all their subjects during their promotional examinations in November last year. Their dismissal took effect from January 31.
Another 80 are said to have been repeated with 102 others warned against possible withdrawal.
Very Rev. Emmanuel K. Churcher, Headmaster of the school, in an interview with the paper on Friday attributed the students’ poor performance to lackadaisical attitude towards learning and some parents’ refusal to pay the school fees of their wards which made their wards easily absent themselves.
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I haven’t visited Air Force Station - Rawlings
The office of the former President, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, has described as malicious a publication in an Accra bi-weekly that he had visited the Air Force Station and demanded to be allowed to fly an Air Force jet, the Daily Graphic reported.
A statement issued in Accra on Sunday said the former President has never visited the Air Force Station since leaving office “and has certainly never demanded to fly any Air Force jet.”
Many people, including members of the military establishment, have expressed surprise at the story “and it is hoped that at the appropriate time they will clarify the matter and expose the falsehood”.
The statement denied that the former President took a two-hour cruise aboard the Executive yacht but however admitted that he, “wishing for some peace and quiet, spent some time outside Accra aboard a VRA operated yacht, but the vessel remained anchored to its mooring, and never left the port”.
It described as ridiculous the allegation that the ex-President requested for police dispatch riders to escort him to the funeral of the former President of the Methodist Conference, the late Rev Jacob Stephens.
On his visits to the stable at Burma Camp, the statement pointed out that Flt. Lt. Rawlings had over the years bred horses as a hobby and made them available to the Burma Camp stable.
The Camp, it said, is open to non-military personnel, including members of diplomatic corps, adding that the ex-President’s visits are therefore nothing extraordinary to warrant banner headlines unless it has a sinister motive.
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Accusations are wrong – Tsikata
The former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, is reported by Graphic to have stated that it is wrong for anyone to regard various financial transactions he undertook in his official capacity as CEO as an act of piling on debt for the corporation without taking any notice of the assets he created from those transactions.
Reacting to a recent publication in ‘The Ghanaian Chronicle’, he noted that those accusations are further attempts to use a barrage of falsehood and unjustified insinuations to incite the public and the government against him.
He said he would wish to have the chance to present the facts and issues as he knows them to the designated officials in the new government and the President himself if he so desires.
He added that, the impression created by the paper that the Japan Bank for International Co-operation, the US Exim Bank and other reputable banks just put money into a “madcap scheme” he single handedly pursued is ridiculous.
He stated that he has no intention of leaving the country as the said publication purported to have indicated.
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SFO targeted Nduom, Sowu – says ex-Exec Director
The Ghanaian Chronicle says its interactions with Mr Dominic DeGraft Aidoo, the former Acting Executive Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), over the last few weeks reveals that some of the more heinous aspects of the body was the destruction of certain individuals.
It said Dr Kwesi Nduom and Squadron Leader Clend Sowu, among the list, were hated by the Government and targeted by the small tribe of top Government officials who had the SFO under their thumb.
Sowu was targeted by the terror brigade controlled by Obed, Agama, Kwamena Ahwoi, Ato Dadzie, at the outset of investigations into the Keta Sea Defence affair.
Mr Degraft Aidoo revealed that President Rawlings personally gave him the assignment after sending for him to the Castle shortly after he concluded a probe in the A-Life matter, which was also hi-jacked from him by the former Vice President Prof. Atta-Mills.
Dr Kwesi Nduom is said to have been targeted when he steadfastly refused to join the NDC or accept a position even though the company he was associated with as an international partner, Deloitte and touché Consulting, had a number of contracts with state-owned enterprises like Ghana Telecom, Volta River Authority and quasi Government companies like Ashanti Goldfields.
The perception of those in Government, Chronicle said, was that they had helped his company to make money and therefore angered them that Nduom was refusing to play ball with the NDC party.
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The Witch-hunt has begun
The Ghanaian Democrat writes that the N(PP) has not changed a bit in its philosophy of witch-hunting and a scenario similar to that of the 1960s, is now being masterminded from the office of the President in earnest less than one month into the Kufuor’s presidency.
It said in the early hours of last Wednesday, policemen with assault riffles condoned off the ACDR regional office at Pig Farm and searched all the rooms for “arms and ammunitions” with the exercise not yielding even a locally manufactured bullet as evidence.
In another instance, Alhaji Baba Kamara, the Deputy Treasurer of NDC was the next to taste what the NPP has planned for NDC top men at a warehouse off the Spintex Road in Accra, which was invaded by the Police on Wednesday.
Another NDC sympathiser, Usuya, a director of a local construction firm, suspected to be keeping arms for the purpose of destabilising the state, is said to be under the watchful eyes of Kufuor’s security personnel.
The Democrat says what is happening is not strange to followers of Ghana’s political evolution since independence. “It is clear from the panicky measures being adopted by the new NPP administration that they have always acted evil because they fear evil.”
Observers, it said, believes the NPP would be better off concentrating on fulfilling the several promises they gave to the electorate rather than unleashing fear on society.
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Osafo-Maafo scores first victory
The Free Press writes that in a reminiscent move, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo has amply demonstrated a positive economic wizardry by which the European Union (EU) has agreed to waive the sale of the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB).
It said only a week after Parliament confirmed his nomination as the Minister of Finance, Mr Osafo-Maafo has succeeded to impress upon the E.U. to waive the controversial sale of the national bank, a conditionality placed on the Rawlings government under Ghana’s privatisation programme.
The nation last year forfeited a major EU assistance package valued at eight million Euro due to the country’s inability to meet certain conditionalities, including selling GCB.
Last Friday February 2, the Minister disclosed that the government had accordingly set out to review the sale of the bank and, for that matter, has halted all arrangements in relating it.
The President, Mr J.A. Kufuor and the E.U. Director of West Africa and Central African Directorate for the European Commission, Mr Friedrich Hamburger, in line with that, held a close-door meeting in Accra.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said that the Government had petitioned the E.U. to reconsider its decision to withdraw the assistance package and it had agreed.
“This, without doubt, is a victory for Ghana, its people, the government and Osafo-Maafo in particular”, submits the paper.
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NPP women angry with Hawa Yakubu
President J.A. Kufuor, according to ‘The Dispatch’ continues to sort out the pressures of interest groups in the selection of his Ministers and their deputies, and the internal party issue, which refuses to go away is reaching boiling point.
“Some members of an important and influential pressure group within the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Women’s Group, is threatening to go public over what one of them terms, “how the party is fussing over a latter day female convert to the NPP.” When pressed to mention who that person was, she said, “Hon. Hawa Yakubu, of course,” it said.
Two NPP women, whose names were not disclosed, alleged that their stance was not because Hon Hawa was not a fine material but because she is relatively new in the party while there are other equally capable women who have stayed several years with the NPP among whom the President could have made his choices.
Hon Hawa Yakubu reportedly confirmed the story, indicating that she was aware of tension emanating from some leading female party members.
She however said she had in 1979 been with the United National Convention (UNC), part of the UP tradition, from which emerged also the current Speaker of Parliament, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey, and Mr Sam Okudzeto.
She said in 1992, as an independent Member of Parliament, she stood on the side of the NPP in its absence from Parliament.
She said she was sure that about 80 per cent of the women in the NPP are on her side, adding that she was ready to work with everybody.
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US orders Ghana to pay 70b cedis
The Ghana government’s properties in the United States of America stands the risk of being confiscated and auctioned, according to the Ghanaian Voice.
This follows a commanding order given by the United States of America government to the Ghana Government to effect the payment of $10 million judgement debt owed Delta Foods Ltd. The company is owned by Rockshel Kwaku Tei and he got his judgement in Ghana and US courts.
According to documents sighted by the paper, this judgement debt has been outstanding since 1997, arising from maize imports during the El Nino crisis in 1997.
The US government is said to have invested $4 billion in the food security to ward off any possible effect of the El Nino.
The Ghana government in a similar vein contracted Delta Foods Ltd. of Rockshel Tei and his partners in the US to supply the country with 100,000 metric tonnes of maize to meet grain shortfalls that might have been caused by the insurgent cereal crisis.
The first consignment of 21,000 metric tonnes arrived in the country some time later within the contractual period. The Ghana government took custody but dragged its feet on payment and Delta Foods subsequently took the matter to court.
The refusal of the former NDC government to honour judgement debts slapped by both the High Courts and Supreme Courts led the company’s US partner to take the matter to the US court to enforce the Ghana government’s own court judgement.
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Action now! CHRAJ or TRC
The Accra Mail says the need for some forum for truth and reconciliation keeps beckoning with the government of President Kufuor being looked upon to midwife a new era of healing which will hopefully help the nation put behind it the pains of June 4 and December 31.
It said many people were wilfully damaged by the system, some with flimsy excuses that they had children with other people’s spouses, one of such, being a mild mannered civil servant called Mr Bentum-Eshun.
“His crime was that he had fathered children out of wedlock and allegedly not taking care of his wife,” the paper said.
Mr Bentum-Eshun was vilified and hounded by the powers that be, with the connivance of the editor of the Ghanaian Times at the time, who wrote scathing editorials against the man and commissioned articles from a mysterious “correspondent of the 31st December Women’s Movement (DWM)” to do him damage.
After the terror by ‘The Ghanaian Times’ and DWM, Bentum-Eshun eventually lost his job and suffered terrible humiliation and penury until his death in 1999.
“His final home call was with the humiliation he suffered from the Rawlings ‘revolution,’ it said.
The lady, guilty of having a child with Bentum-Eshun, was also hounded and vilified by DWM until she also lost her job as a sports administrator until today, she has been reduced to frying yam.
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