General News of Wednesday, 16 August 2023

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Hypocrites have found their voices suddenly - NDC MPs critique Prof Adei

Prof Stephen Adei play videoProf Stephen Adei

Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, a National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament has criticised former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof. Stephen Adei.

Dafeamekpor's critique is related to recent comments by Prof. Adei on the decision by Minority MPs to picket at the Bank of Ghana premises if the governor does not resign along with his deputies over recently announced losses.

The professor is on record to have said it is not simplistic to demand the resignation of a central bank governor and more so that the BoG premises was a security zone.

"Prof Addae is crying that, BOG is a security zone. He has so soon forgotten that Occupyghana used to Occupy the Flagstaff House under JM. Isn’t the seat of Govt a security zone then? The hypocrites have found their voices suddenly," his posted on Twitter on August 15.

He is not the first NDC MP to go after the academic and economist. Minority Chief Whip, Kwame Governs Agbodza also tweeted: "It is rather sad that people like Prof. Stephen Adei have constantly chosen to be part of the problems of our nation and not the solution. Time and again, Prof. Adei has demonstrated through his hypocritical and lopsided positions and commentary on critical national issues, that all he cares about is his political affiliation and loyalty to his friends in government."





The Minority in Parliament has described as flimsy, an attempt by the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to explain questions they have raised about details in the central bank’s annual report for 2022.

Responding to a press statement by the Bank of Ghana dated August 9, 2023, the minority said BOG engaged in deliberate distortions while failing to justify the GHC60.8 billion loss and negative equity of GHC55.1 billion it recorded in 2022.

“In the said press statement, the Bank of Ghana attempts to shamelessly justify its recklessness and mismanagement which resulted in the huge losses of GHS60.8 billion and the negative equity of GHS55.1 billion it recorded in the year 2022.

“As a matter of fact, the Bank of Ghana’s unsigned press statement, is full of deliberate distortions and flimsy justifications which do not address the serious matters that were raised in our Moment of Truth presser last Tuesday,” the statement signed by the leader of the Minority, Cassiel Ato-Forson said.

The minority which earlier held a press conference accusing the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance of breaching laws guiding their operations said the central bank in its August 9 statement failed to address the core issues it raised earlier.

“The referenced Bank of Ghana’s statement does not address the most fundamental issue which has to do with the printing of money by BOG for the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government in 2021 and 2022 in clear contravention of Section 30 of the Bank of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 2016 (ACT 918). Indeed, throughout the statement, BOG does not and could not have offered any reasonable justification for printing a whopping GHS35 billion in 2021 and GHS42 billion in 2022 to finance the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia/NPP government, in clear breach of their governing law.

“It is an indisputable fact, that the amount of monies printed by BOG for the reckless Akufo Addo/Bawumia government both in 2021 and 2022 far exceeds the legally acceptable threshold of 5% of the previous fiscal years’ total revenue,” the statement said.

While describing the action by the central bank and the ministry of finance as illegal, the minority raised further questions around the decision by the decision write-off GHC48 billion in debt owed by the government to BoG.

The minority also questioned the construction of a $250 million office complex by the central bank describing the basis as untenable.

SARA

Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.



Meanwhile, watch Legal Agenda on GhanaWeb TV below:





Share your news stories and ideas with GhanaWeb


To advertise with GhanaWeb