A Guide To Corruption (4). President Mills Cannot and Will Not Do This!
You can read all about the Mabey and Johnson judgment from the leading websites on Ghana. Each carries the story and details what I said in an earlier breaking news alert of August 7th. At the time, I wrote about the impending implosion and chronicled the history of the Mabey and Johnson bribery of NDC executives in another Guide to Corruption. Since then we have waited patiently for September 25th and this is just the beginning. I will dare to suggest that President Mills will make a show of investigating the issues involved and former President JJ Rawlings will pretend that all this happened under his nose and he knew nothing of it, even though his senior cabinet ministers were in the thick of it, and so was his wife.
President Mills has allegedly asked the Attorney General Betty Mould Iddrissu to investigate the Mabey and Johnson case in Ghana and spare no one found guilty of the offences established by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.
Sydney Casely-Hayford
Police fire tear gas at crowd in Asabee case
The former Information Minister, Hon. Asamoah Boateng is reported to have been arrested and locked in the BNI Cells pending further investigations. Peace FM sources say he went to the BNI headquarters in the morning, together with his wife and two lawyers, but the security personnel drove them away and locked him in their cells. Our reporter, Obeng Manu disclosed that there was no sign of releasing the victim. According to him, the BNI on two different occasions prevented Mr. Asamoah Boateng and his family from travelling abroad without a reason, so the latter had gone to inquire.
Former minister son shot
Armed men in uniform from the Ghana Police Service on Saturday opened fire on Kwesi Osei, a pre-med student and first born of Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, former MP for Asuogyaman and ex-deputy Minister of Tourism. The firing saw a live-bullet piercing through the right thigh of Kwesi Osei and shredding some substantial amount of flesh, with his trousers and shoes getting soaked in blood as he sprawled in agonized semi-consciousness struggling to stay alive.
A guide to Corruption (2) Mabey and Johnson
This past Friday, August 7, 2009, the case against Mabey was postponed, to be heard on September 25th this year. The UK has to prove that it is taking these corruption charges seriously, coming in the wake of their refusal to investigate the BAE’s Saudi Arabian arms deal and other cases presently before the UK SFO. One major disclosure made by Richard Alderman, Director of UK SFO is that Mabey and Johnson has agreed to pay “reparations” to both Ghana and Jamaica for bribery offences between 1994 and 2000. This admission immediately attaches guilt of some wrongdoing. How much was given, and who was bribed on our (Ghana) side is detailed in the UK SFO submission to the court, but unfortunately presiding Judge Rivlin chose to gag the press. The information is available, we just cannot broadcast in the public yet. But it will come out. The pressure is on the NDC government to accept this reparation.
Sydney Casely-Hayford
NDC Manifesto in Scam
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is alleged to be have surreptitiously withdrawn the manifesto signed by the then candidate John Evans Atta Mills, with which the party ran its 2008 political campaign for last year’s elections, replacing it with a new one they refer to as ‘The New King James Version.’ Just a few weeks into the ceremonious first 100 days of the government, the ruling NDC has substituted the endorsed manifesto and put in circulation a brand new one with different content and devoid of the signature of President Mills. As it appears now, the belief of Ghanaians that they voted for the NDC based on a manifesto that would serve their interests has apparently been short-changed with the withdrawal of the original one.
Rawlings Exposed
In-depth investigations conducted by The Statesman have established that the education of two of former President Jerry John Rawlings’ daughters abroad was funded by a British water company – Biwater – which paid 7,000 Pounds Sterling a term per child. A few years ago an independent newspaper based in Accra, reported that after his government had created the Junior and the Senior Secondary School (now Junior High and Senior High School) system, the former President deemed it more expedient to educate his children abroad using the Ordinary and Advanced Level system, which his government had discredited.
The children, Ezanetor and Amina Rawlings, were sent to Millfield public school in Dorset – a classy institution that charges very exorbitant fees. The fees were described as scholarships paid for by Biwater, which was then bidding for the management of Ghana’s water supply system.
By Peter Atiemo
Campaign 2008
| NDC CAPTURES PRESIDENCY, NPP RETAINS PARLIAMENT |
| This will be the likely outcome of the 2008 General Elections in GHANA if it is free and fair according to my research. While many dread such an outcome. I am all for it. Why? Because I think that will be the best thing ever happened to our democracy. It will strengthen Parliament to play its critical role in Nation building. The current Parliament is too weak to play any effective role in national development. It has abandoned its role as a check on Executive power. It is not performing its role of being the controller of the purse rather it exist to just rubber stamp Executive acts without any critical examination and debate. It fails to check abuses, it does not invite Ministers to Parliament for hearings, and has no power to act when people like Wereko Brobbey treat the house with contempt. A parliament controlled by the opposition is our surest bet in reducing governmental corruption.
My conviction of the outcome of the 2008 general elections is based on the fact that the advantage enjoyed by the NPP in the last presidential elections has been eroded by failure of government to honour its promises, rise in poverty, the energy crisis, armed robbers terrorising people, large army of unemployed youth who the NPP led government has failed to create jobs for. Ben Ofosu -Appiah, Political Analyst |
