Opinions of Saturday, 28 April 2012
Columnist: Benjamin, Thelma
…Investigative Piece On Ray Smith Secret Letter To The President
THE CONSPIRACY:
It is very informative to see a semblance of the happenings that characterized the early days when this whole matter broke recurring today; where 3 newspapers, believed to be sympathetic to the opposition NPP, had carried 3 seemingly separate [but inter-linked] stories on the matter relating to the Judgment Debt payment to Alfred Woyome:
• One newspaper [The Finder] making reference to Kennedy Agyapong’s deliberately misleading claim that the amount of GHS92, 000,000.00 was the amount paid to Alfred Woyome. This Kennedy Agyepong was the person prompted by some NDC Government insiders to use the contents of the deliberately flawed Auditor-General’s Report [that transmogrified a payment of GHS17 million to GHS58 million], the first-ever of such “mistakes” made in the history of publication of the Auditor-General’s reports. Amazingly, the Auditor-General could only issue a Press Release admitting that this was an error which had subsequently been rectified.
• Another newspaper [The Punch] writes on “Waterville” and makes assertions that have very little basis in fact; indeed, this newspaper mainly regurgitated the factual inaccuracies and outright fabrications that characterized the early days of media commentary on this matter.
• The third newspaper, the New Crusading Guide, carried information targeted at further discrediting Alfred Woyome. Why did they only pick snippets of the so-called ten-page addendum to the letter purportedly written by Ray Smith and sent to President Mills? It would be interesting to see what the remainder of the documents would reveal.
The President’s order for the EOCO to investigate circumstances leading to the payment of all Judgment Debts specifically enjoined the EOCO not to embarrass any beneficiary from a Judgment Debt payment, that all Judgment Debts and similar settlements be tackled.
And yet, subsequently, what did we see being done to Alfred Woyome?
The very things that His Excellency the President had said should not be done.
To date, the EOCO has taken an interest in ONLY the Judgment Debt paid to Alfred Woyome. What has happened to all the other Judgment Debts? Are they not of importance to the Government? What is holding the EOCO back from pursuing these cases, some of which involve amounts far exceeding the amount paid to Alfred Woyome?
To go on: EOCO actively took up the case relating to Alfred Woyome, carried out a hurried “investigation”, issued a warped, skewed and clearly prejudiced “Interim” Report which has already been amended once and on which basis, Alfred Woyome was “arrested” and the criminal proceedings against him commenced.
Cheques issued by Mr. Alfred Woyome on his bank account were photocopied and distributed to Media Houses whilst details of some transactions on his account were divulged to the general public all in a bid to make Alfred Woyome look bad in the public eye.
The manner of Mr. Alfred Woyome’s arrest, with his subsequent detention for two weeks, was calculated to embarrass the man. Indeed, Security analysts have opined that the manner of this arrest lead one to suspect that it was meant to be some more sinister action and not an arrest. Has any member of the NPP or allegedly complicit person been treated the same?
It is again most interesting and insightful that, on this particular matter involving Alfred Woyome, very influential top persons within the NDC Government and their co-conspirators in the opposition NPP, find it expedient to work seamlessly together to protect a certain group of people.
It would seem that the backs of these conspirators against the truth are against the wall and they are now clutching at straws hence the publication of the so-called secret letter to President Mills and snippets out of a supposed ten-page addendum that have obviously been carefully selected. The desperation of these conspirators is further evidenced by the shameful rehashing of Kennedy Agyepong’s spurious comments and allegations.
Mr. Woyome gave the hint that, in due time, Ghanaians would be given vivid details of this conspiracy and the names of the persons involved. “These revelations will shock Ghanaians”, he stated.
In his concluding comment, Alfred Woyome urged the conspirators to help the Government [State] to prove its case in court rather than resorting to serializing USELESS BITS OF INFORMATION DESIGNED TO DIVERT ATTENTION FROM THE PRESSURE THAT IS MOUNTING ON THEM BECAUSE THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS UPON THE ACCUSER!!!
Source:
Thelma Benjamin
Freelance Journalist with
Wiener Zeitung