Can Ghanaians Take What Akufo-Addo Says To The Bank?

Ask Margaret Jackson

July 16, 2012

For political expediency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, NPPs Flagbearer for the December 7, 2012 elections, will say just anything to get elected. Akufo-Addo, who has vowed never to address any issue concerning himself, always wait until there is bad news about the NDC, then comes out forcefully to spread his false credentials on honesty, decisiveness, uprightness, humility and anything you can think of. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has done everything there is to do, but it has never negated the fact that even when he sounds genuine to some voters many more Ghanaians still see the arrogance in him.

It was not long ago that Akufo-Addo told Ghanaians that he will never allow the Woyome issue under his watch and later added that he will not tolerate any corrupt practices whatsoever in his dream administration. I do not have any qualms about Akufo-Addo vowing not to have any Woyome issue under his watch. Nobody would want his/her administration to be saddled with corruption.

But my beef is that if we talk about people, I mean upright Ghanaians who have fought corruption in their little corners or at wherever positions/portfolios they have held, Akufo-Addo has never been one of them. Akufo-Addo can never be counted as an anti-corruption crusader even in his own backyard Kyebi. In fact, anywhere Akufo-Addo has served as a minister; he has left trails of questionable and dishonourable decisions which put his so-called honesty, judgment and integrity into serious doubt. Do you remember the three NPP cocaine women who were freed by Akufo-Addo or the diplomatic passport he gave to his relative who was a drug baron?

Therefore, if a person like Akufo-Addo with a heavy baggage of questionable traits blurs out that he will not tolerate corruption in his dream government, he instantly becomes a laughing stock to those who know him very well or to those who are well versed in his track record at all the ministries he served under the Kufuor’s government.

We are all aware that Akufo-Addo does not want to talk about Ken Agyapong’s inflammatory case which could cost him a lot of votes, but he has found time and time again to talk about the Woyome’s 51 million Ghana Cedis case which I personally detest and would want the government to thoroughly prosecute and punish Woyome severely if found guilty. But Akufo-Addo in talking about the Woyome case sounds as if the Woyome judgment case was the first time that he Akufo-Addo was even hearing about anything concerning judgment debts.

But out of the blue came out that in fact Akufo-Addo is equally guilty when it comes to judgment debt issues, since he recommended to the Kufuor’s government way back in 2001 to settle its legal wrangling with the Great Cape Company of Switzerland. This piece of information came to light at a press conference by the government to expose the complicity of Akufo-Addo’s double talk and dubious behaviour when it comes to judgment debts.

What even baffled many Ghanaians was the information that even 10 years after leaving public office (Kufuor’s government), Akufo-Addo, who wants every Ghanaian to believe that he is more upright than President Mills, found the time and energy to certify that the Great Cape Company deserves compensation from the government. And to add insult to injury, Akufo-Addo even got the nerve to write a letter dated October 3, 2011, recommending that the Ministry of Finance should pay about $1.1 Million to the Great Cape Company. To buttress this exposure, a copy of the letter written by Akufo-Addo was produced by the NDC Communication team led by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.

But Akufo-Addo is the same man going round during his campaign tours blabbing that he will never recommend or pay any judgment debt under his dream administration. So how do Ghanaians mesh this double behaviour of Akufo-Addo who today has been caught for writing to the NDC government just last year to pay judgment debt to the Great Cape Company? Interestingly, it is this same company that Akufo-Addo as Attorney General and Minister of Justice recommended to the Kufuor’s government to pay them in 2001, but just as the NPP government adopted a non-payment attitude so that judgment debts will balloon to proportional heights, Kufuor ignored that payment.

The big question to ask is what interest does Akufo-Addo has in the Great Cape Company judgment debt. Hell will break loose if President Mills has written such a letter, but immediately after the exposure of Akufo-Addo’s duplicity in the judgment debt issue, the NPP Communication team came out to say that the letter that Akufo-Addo wrote was no big deal.

I have said time and again that Akufo-Addo serves himself better when he keeps mute on certain issues because anytime he talks big and sound disingenuous it does not take long for his dishonesty to pop up. The NPP folks who are now reeling under severe pressure as a result of Akufo-Addo’s exposure for writing a letter to support a company’s quest for judgment debt better come again.

Every problem on hand has a root or remote cause. We are today talking about judgment debts with the NPP trying to blame the NDC as if the government headed by President Mills does not care about the country but is just out to dole out money to undeserving Ghanaians or companies without trying to find out who or which government created the judgment debt crisis.

The NPP should weave and dodge and also adopt the rope a dope strategy to create the impression that it is the NDC which is giving out free monies to people through the payment of judgment debts. Gradually, it is dawning on Ghanaians that the NPP cannot run for long and that the current debt crisis is surely their baby. They are the party which came to power and cancelled all contracts that they believe will benefit “perceived” NDC members.

What the NPP did was that if there was any contract which they assumed the beneficiary had sympathy for the NDC, they went ahead and cancelled it. Those who felt cheated and went to court and won their cases against the NPP government got the rudest shock when the NPP refused to pay those individuals and companies. With time interest charges on the judgment debts ballooned to unprecedented heights bringing the country to the stinking situation we find ourselves today.

And the NPP mantra is that the NDC government should have behaved like them by weaving and dodging the payments whist the judgment debts continue to skyrocket. That is why the NPP folks have been going round lambasting the NDC of paying the judgment debts which they created out of their incompetence, greed and sheer buffoonery.

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