The Query & the Response: $100k for seat: Is trouble brewing and from whose pot?

I like roos because they use their tail as an extra leg to walk or when walking.

Five legs are better than four legs for kangaroos. Isn’t that intriguing? That’s kangaroos’ trademark or character trait. It could be interpreted as precaution or being extra careful. Humans take precaution too but not always. Sometimes we restrain the killer punch to save a troubled soul. At other times, we sit back and watch like a cat, we blink or wink. And at times we kill it off to avoid future mishaps.

Mr. Kwamina Miaful Dadzie a ranking member of Ghana Advocacy Group (GAG) in Accra says: “Sound decisions should be carefully made and one must always ask the ‘what if?’ Always put yourself in the other camps’ position and ask: ‘how will this look?’ If it has the semblance of anything that would malign our government and the presidency…”

Partisan politics is a universal disease for both players in government and opposition. The governing NPP and the opposition NDC in Ghana are guilty of this political blight. They aren’t oblivious to or of the consequences that may arise tomorrow. They very much understand the rules of the game yet they don’t conform to it. That explains why we often hear a ‘wolf cry’ and claims of witch-hunt.

Today, as I write this piece the man who hires and fires his political appointees is faced with a conundrum. He’s a card held close to his chest. Trouble is brewing in someone’s pot and the buck rests at the office of the president to make a radical decision.

This follows a response to his query demanding answers to an alleged bribery scandal. Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen is the man in the centre of all this. His ministry is purported to have charged monies from expatriates before they were allowed to sit beside the president at a recent awards event held in Accra.

But how long would the president hold this card close to his chest?

“As I speak with you now the Trade Minister has responded accordingly and the President is studying the response. Whatever will be the case we want to bring finality to the issue as quickly as possible, whatever directive the president will issue will be known to the general public,” director of communications at the Flagstaff House Eugene Arhin told one of the Multi-Media networks, Adom yesterday.

This writer believes the president is just being cautious in dealing with his first card. However, one must not lose sight of the fact that it isn’t so easy to make such a crucial decision. Yes he’s the card but he’s keeping it for a while after a study. That’s diplomacy at play. But he’s also aware that the feathers of a dead bird cannot stay atop of tree forever. Ghanaians and the whole world want to know what really happened. Was there bribery? Did the Trade Ministry extort or charge monies form the expats?

Was the president aware of this and what will he do if Alan is implicated?

‘The president had no idea some persons had to pay $100,00 to sit by his table at the December 8 Ghana Expatriate Business Awards organised by the Millennium Excellence Awards in collaboration with the Trade Ministry,” said Mr. Arhin.

Mr. Kyerematen was President Akufo-Addo’s A-card. He was the president’s first choice minister following his historic victory in the 2016 presidential election. In fact Mr. Akufo-Addo confirmed him as the trade minister in December 2016 even before his investiture on the 7th of January 2017.

So among industry chieftains it was a big deal as he chose to make the announcement during a meeting with the Private Enterprise Federation (PEF) at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration GIMPA in Accra. In part, this is what makes the case daisy.

The event that happened on Friday December 8, 2017 might’ve snuck many lenses but its fragrance was too strong to stay at the venue. Hop hop hop...it hopped like a kangaroo. And here we are. It’s become the biggest news item of the week and gone global. ‘Money for seat’ has been hopping like a kangaroo restless maybe until it finds trouble.

Allan Winniker’s book ‘The Expatriate’ published in 2001 features Bobby Hessberg 13-year-0ld Philadelphian on holiday in Atlantic City who literally walks into a beach full of trouble.

Is that what’s developing now? And could the outcome change Alan’s political career?

Before midweek (Tuesday) or early Wednesday the president had in a query letter asked Mr. Kyerematen to explain circumstances that led to financial demands from the expatriate business community who participated in a recent awards ceremony.

Meanwhile, Millennium Excellence Foundation (MEF) has rejected claims that it sold seats to expatriates willing to pay as much as $100,000 to sit close to the President at an awards dinner The event organisers which collaborated with the Trade ministry to organise the Ghana Expatriates Business Award (GEBA) at a press conference on Wednesday reiterated this: "no one paid 100,000 dollars to sit close to the president before that event."

But that claim doesn’t seem to have strong foundation as institutions, and some political parties have called for thorough investigations to be launched into the corrupt allegation.

Anti-corruption campaigner Vitus Azeem has called on Parliament to set up an independent committee to probe monies charged by the Ministry of Trade and Industry before some expats were allowed to sit beside the president at a recent awards event held in Accra. According to him, the development is unfortunate and does not speak well for the government.

The minority in Parliament has also called for an investigation. “Only when you investigate them and get to the very bottom that you get to know who might‘ve been doing this…The investigations will establish the veracity of the allegations and put the matter to rest,” Muntaka Mubarak Minority Chief Whip.

Also on Monday the Minority Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa alleged that there was extortion of between $25000 and $100,000 from expatriate businesses to determine how close to the president they sit at an awards ceremony for expatriate businesses.