John Jinapor, Aide to Vice President John Mahama, is questioning the authenticity and source of a letter purported to have been signed by the Vice President to a Chinese firm. The letter, according to MP for Manhyia, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, seeks to court the Chinese company, Pierson Capital Group to grant loans to the government of Ghana with a guarantee to use Ghana’s oil and or cocoa as collateral for the loan. The MP told Joy FM’s Parliamentary Correspondent Sammy Darko that John Mahama is insisting on the collateralization of the country’s oil revenue in in order to make good promises he made to the company and as captured in the said letter. The Vice President had only recently lambasted opponents of the collateralisation of the country’s oil revenue, describing such a stance as being foolhardy. The government is seeking Parliament to amend that portion of the bill that proscribes the collateralisation. Mathew Opoku Prempeh said the letter is evidence that John Mahama had already committed the country to use the oil revenue as collateral for a loan and is only pressing the nation to side with him to further his interest. “I write to thank you for our recent meeting and to express my profound appreciation for the discussion in which you expressed interest to structure the financing of the various key infrastructure projects in Ghana, particularly the Eastern Corridor Road Project. This project is very crucial to the economic development of Ghana and our government will be willing to secure repayment of the financing for this and other projects over a 15-20 year period through sovereign guarantees and or appropriate commodity collaterals eg. cocoa, oil etc subject to Parliamentary approval,” a portion of the letter read. The letter is dated 11 February, 2010 and signed by the vice-president. But John Jinapor, aide to John Mahama is contesting the existence of such a letter. He told Joy News’ Araba Koomson the vice-president does not sign such letters, but in this case, has not even written any such letter in the first place. “Those of you who understand governance will attest to the fact that those letters are not signed by the vice president and that is why the vice president has a secretary who does all signing of documents. “This is news to us. I have just spoken to the Vice-president and he has confirmed to me that he is never; let me put this on record; he has never written any letter of such nature. He said the letter is “fraudulent” signed by a person with “ulterior motives.” He has enlisted the CID to determine the authenticity of the letter and its source. Play the attached audio for excerpts of the interviews Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana