The ex-Minister at the Finance Ministry, Anthony Akoto Osei has rubbished claims of wrong doing in the transactions of the Baah- Wiredu one-laptop-per-child policy. He was alleged to have ordered the payment of over two million dollars to a US firm for the delivery of 10,000 laptops, a day before the erstwhile New Patriotic Party handed over power to the National Democratic Congress. However, only 1000 computers have been delivered in May, a development the Director of Investigation at the SFO, Tetteh Mensah, thinks is unacceptable. He lamented the delay in the delivery of the computers, saying, there is no corresponding haste in the delivery of the laptops as it was with the payments. He hinted his outfit will take a second look at the contractual agreement to find out if any of the terms of agreement have been breached and a possible prosecution if any element of corruption is uncovered. But in a reaction, the outraged Mr Osei told Joy News’ Araba Coomson the director had it all wrong. “Is rather unfortunate that a lawyer I’m told he is, would want to destroy somebody’s credibility without having the facts.” He explained the ministry of Finance as standard practice accedes to requests from all other Ministries adding, he offered a letter of credit as demanded by the Education Ministry, for the payment of the laptops and that the actual payment was done in May, 2009, at time he was not in government. He finds it preposterous that the director would misconstrue letter of credit to mean actual cash for which he would be accused for wrong doing. “I’m reliably informed that this current government has recently in the last month effected payment or authorised re-establishment of that letter of credit. So it is not true that I could have transferred money, and by the way if Mr. Tetteh doesn’t know, a letter of credit is not cash.” He said no monies were paid on the 6th of January 2009, as alleged, adding; the government on assumption of office stopped all transactions. He hinted he might take legal action to clear his reputation, and urged the Director of investigations to do a good job. The one-laptop-per-child policy was instituted by the Kufuor government in order to improve the ICT education in the country. It was named after the late Finance Minister, Kw0dwo Baah Wiredu for his immense role he played in the project. Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com