FORMER NATIONAL Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential aspirant and Ghana's most acclaimed finance minister, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, last Friday called at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons, to visit former NDC ministers who are currently serving various sentences there.

They are Kwame Peprah, Victor Selormey and Ibrahim Adam, former minister and deputy minister of Finance and minister of Food and Agriculture respectively in the NDC government that crashed out of power in 2000.

The fourth person Dr. Botchwey visited was Dr. George Sipa Yankey, one time legal director at the Finance Ministry who together with Peprah and Adam were imprisoned by the Fast Track court over the Quality Grain case.

Victor Solormey was also jailed over the Court's computerization scandal by the Fast Track court.

Incidentally, while Peprah took over from Dr. Botchwey at the Finance Ministry, both Selormey and Yankey worked under Botchwey as deputy minister and director respectively.

Speaking reluctantly to this reporter who happened to be at the Nsawam Prisons, Dr. Botchwey said he was glad to see that his former colleagues were in good spirits in spite of their obviously difficult circumstances.

On the conviction Dr. Botchwey said he was naturally saddened and that "jailing political office holders and public servants without any evidence of self enrichment or criminal intentions as such sets some very troubling standards for public office," which he hoped Ghana as a nation would reflect very deeply and dispassionately on.