…The Role of Kofi Coomson

It took a phone call from Mrs. Chinery Hesse, Chief Advisor to President J. A. Kufuor to Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom last Tuesday to come to the Castle immediately to see her and to Dr. Nduom's shock when he got to the Castle, he was informed by Mrs. Chinery Hesse that the President had asked her to inform him to resign his position as Minister of Public Sector Reform immediately.

A shocked Dr. Nduom could only assess the situation critically and resolved to insist on a meeting with President Kufuor. That meeting was not to come on till around 5p.m as President Kufuor was said to be busy. In the meantime, Dr. Nduom realised that the Castle for whatever reasons had omitted to invite him like all other ministers for a meeting with visiting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano that day.

Whilst waiting to see President Kufuor, Nduom tried to find out from Mrs. Chinery Hesse what must have informed the President's sudden decision to get him to resign. The bombshell that came out was that Nduom had earlier last month submitted a 'plan of disengagement' from the government as Minister towards Election 2008 to Mrs. Chinery Hesse for study and advice. Between Mrs. Chinery Hesse and Nduom, it was agreed that that document should not be shown to or discussed with the President until after Mrs. Chinery Hesse had read and advised Nduom appropriately.

Perhaps the biggest mistake Nduom has made yet was to have discussed this document with Chronicle Publisher, Nana Kofi Coomson; who whether for want of understanding or pure mischief gleefully passed information on to his boys at The Chronicle that Nduom had submitted a letter of resignation. That clear misinformation led to the Chronicle publication of June 18 which screamed Nduom's resignation and which turned out to be palpably false.

But alas! when Mrs. Chinery Hesse saw the Chronicle publication, she realised that it contained at least 70% of the 'plan of disengagement' Nduom had submitted to her earlier and calculated that if she did not tell the President about it she may be viewed as an Advisor who has kept such an important document away from her boss, so she dutifully obliged and told the President everything she and Nduom had talked about and the 'plan of disengagement” GO found out that President Kufuor was displeased with Dr. Nduom about this development which signals got to Nduom, resulting in Nduom firing a letter of explanation to the President to explain the circumstances under which the Chronicle publication came out and the fact that he had not resigned as falsely published by the Chronicle nor had anything to do with the said story which was false through and through.

Because of this development, NPP hawks and even the G-8 Ministers, some of whom had hints of Nduom 's involvement with Kofi Coomson and the subsequent false resignation story started putting pressure on President Kufuor that Nduom must be made to go because even if NPP men like them were being asked to go, who was Nduom from the CPP to stay on?; especially when the Chronicle had published that he had resigned. What has shocked many Nduom watchers is why Kofi Coomson will carelessly get his boys to publish that Nduom had resigned when indeed he had not resigned.

Coomson is reported to be in hide and seek with Nduom, having refused to pick Nduom’s calls in the immediate aftermath of the Chronicle publication. It took a third party to call Coomson at Nduom’s request before Coomson was informed of his fatal and silly mistake which has cost Nduom his position. Yesterday, a party who is involved in the Nduom-Coomson rigmarole wondered how a so-called experienced journalist who claims to be a Nieman fellow could create such a mess and still call himself a journalist.

“He has seriously breached the faith Nduom had in him and has done something that even journalists on internship will not do. His act of indiscretion will forever haunt him,” one of the persons connected to the affair told the Ghanaian Observer newspaper. When Nduom met President Kufuor finally last Tuesday, all these things were brought up as the reason for the sudden call on him to resign. In an eyeball-to-eyeball chat with President Kufuor, the latter as usual thanked him for his dedication and commitment to his government and wished him well with his politics with the Convention People's Party (CPP), although the hint was given of his refusal to resign from the CPP to join the NPP as one of the leitmotifs of the decision.

It also appears that Dr. Nduom may lose out on his role as Chairman of the Millennium Challenge Authority (MCA) and eventually lose the NPP's backing for the retention of his Kommenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem seat as Central Regional Minister, Stephen Nana Ato Arthur angles for it with the support of one of the G-8 Ministers. So ended the saga of Nduom as one of the finest ever to have graced President Kufuor's government and represented for many the sincerity of Kufuor's all inclusiveness mantra.

Dr. Nduom has since he joined the Kufuor government handled a number of sensitive positions, namely:

• Minister of Economic Planning & Regional Co-operation;

• Minister of Energy;

• Chairman, National Development Planning Commission;

• Member, Finance & Economy Committee of Cabinet (Economic Management Team);

• Chairman, Infrastructure Committee of Cabinet and;

• Minister, Public Sector Reform.