Audio By Carbonatix
New Patriotic Party Parliamentary Candidate for Ablekuma South, Ms Ursula Owusu says no sane person would make the kind of argument the Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and his colleagues are making, that NPP flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo is a hypocrite because he supported the payment of a judgement debt that his predecessor, Dr. Obed Asamoah, from previous NDC government sanctioned.
“If you read the press statement (from the Information Ministry) you can tell that no sane person – excuse my language – would make such an argument,” she said on Metro TV Good Morning Ghana on Tuesday.
Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa held a press conference on Monday and disclosed that in 2001, Nana Addo, then the Attorney-General under the NPP government, directed government to pay $1.1million to a Swiss company, Great Cape as part of judgement debt awarded the company for breach of a contract to supplier clinker way back 1978.
The Deputy Minister described the NPP flagbearer as a hypocrite for pretending he did not support payment of judgement debt when he said that given the opportunity, he, Nana Addo, would rather commit all the moneys being used to pay judgement debts to support his free SHS education policy.
Ms Ursula Owusu said the Deputy Minister and his colleagues at the Information Ministry conveniently ignored the fact that the debt in question was sanctioned by Dr. Obed Asamoah, the then Attorney-General under the previous NDC government.
She said Nana Addo only came in to implement what his predecessor Dr. Obed Asamoah sanctioned and the NDC government even started paying before they lost power in 2000, but the Deputy Minister hid that side of the story from Ghanaians.
Ms. Ursula Owusu said in Nana Addo’s letter to the Ministry of Finance recommending the payment to Great Cape, he made categorical reference to Dr. Obed Asamoah’s recommendations for payment way back in November 1997, but Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa chose to ignore that important fact.
According to her, Dr. Asamoah and the previous NDC government had admitted to violating the rights of Great Cape and had indeed started paying them before they left power so Nana Addo, being law abiding, only came to continue the process to clean the NDC’s own mess.
She said it was therefore surprising that the country’s Ministry of Information would set aside such an important part of the story and concoct their own version for political expediency.
“If those statements had been made on a political platform I would have excused it but for our whole Ministry of Information, which is fast becoming a charade and subjecting itself to continuous public ridicule to concoct its own version of the story just for political expediency is rather mind boggling,” she said.
Ms.Ursla Owusu said as one time Attorney-General, Nana Addo was fully aware that judgement debts had been around and would continue to be around for a long time, but the problematic issue is the recent rush by the Mill-led government to pay judgement debts to its cohorts, and also to capture such debts in the National Budget, purportedly to embarrass the previous NPP government.
Meanwhile, the founder and leader of United Renaissance Party, Charles Kofi Wayo has also said Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa is sometimes st***d for making such arguments.
But a member of the NDC’s Communication Team, Felix Kwakye argued that the logic in the argument of the Ministry of Information was that Nana Addo had sought to create the impression he had never supported the payment of judgement, but that is wrong.
DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
Tags:
DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
Latest Stories
-
Gov’t to establish Prison Industrial Hub to equip inmates with income-generating skills – Prison Service boss
12 minutes -
Alhassan Tampuli donates cement, roofing sheets to support storm victims in Gushegu
13 minutes -
Alhassan Tampuli appeals for urgent support for storm victims in Gushegu
16 minutes -
The hypocrisy must stop; pass Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill now – Alhassan Tampuli to Mahama
20 minutes -
Imprisonment should be rehabilitative, not punitive – Ghana Prisons boss at UNGA
41 minutes -
Ga Adangbe traditional priests petition Mahama over McDan aviation licence revocation
53 minutes -
Anti-LGBTQ Bill: NDC’s arrogance is worrying – Hassan Tampuli
1 hour -
Let’s give OSP time to mature, not to scrap it – Hassan Tampuli
1 hour -
Nigeria convicts 386 Islamist militants in mass trials
1 hour -
Djibouti president wins election with 97.8% of vote, state media saysÂ
1 hour -
We don’t have mandate to deduct tax from rent allowance of security services personnel – Interior Ministry clarifies
2 hours -
Ablakwa receives Presidential Special Envoy on Reparations to advance global agenda
2 hours -
Christina Koch becomes first woman to travel around the moon on Artemis II
2 hours -
Epstein survivors’ calls to meet King Charles and Queen harder to ignore as US visit approaches
2 hours -
UN Secretary-General names Ghana’s Anita Kiki Gbeho as South Sudan envoy
2 hours