The spokesperson of the Atta-Mills Campaign Team, Dr Benjamin Kubour, has stated that it was the personal decision of former vice-president Professor John Atta Mills not to accept any presents during the past Christmas season.

Dr Kumbour said it is rather unfortunate that the decision by Prof. Mills to decline and return the gift parcel sent to him by the Kufour administration through the officials of the State Protocol has been subjected to varying interpretations by agents of the government.

In a statement issued in Accra on Friday, Dr Kumbour said Prof. Mills reserves the right as an individual to refuse presents as and when he deems fit. “He has also stated categorically that his decision to return the presents had nothing to do with former President Jerry Rawlings,” he said. In arriving at the decision, he said, Prof. Mills sought to avoid the recurrence of embarrassing situations where anytime he criticises the government, the latter reacts by demanding a return of some facilities and courtesies extended to him by virtue of the Greenstreet Report and the Joint Transitional Committee set up after the 2000 elections.

In returning the parcel, Prof. Mills was seeking to prevent a situation where the administration would one day publicly request for the return of the present because he may have dared as the NDC flagbearer to criticise it,” Dr Kubour said. He said Christmas gifts are normally given out in the spirit of sincere love and genuine goodwill, stressing that Ghanaians are aware of the number of times the administration has leaked stories on the facilities accorded to the former vice-president to the public.

Dr Kubour further added that the treatment accorded Prof. Mills since December 2000, including the siege laid at his residence by the government’s security and intelligence operatives to retrieve vehicles officially allocated to him, can never be in consonance with the spirit of Christmas especially when the outcome of the promised investigation into the incident has never been made known, if it ever did take place at all.

He said it is ridiculous that at a time of hardships, when the spectre of fuel of price increases is looming on the horizon, when schools are about to re-open and parents are worried over the attendant high school fees, the NPP government is rather interested in such trivia as the return of unsolicited gifts by the former vice-president.

“The earlier the government turned its attention to the burning issues of the day, the better it would be for itself and for the suffering Ghanaian masses,” Dr Kumbour said.

Probe Why We Rejected Gifts - Mills

Former vice President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills has called on government to establish a committee to probe the circumstances that led to him and former President Rawlings rejecting Christmas gifts presented to them by the State Protocol Department. He says such a committee would be welcomed because ''it is important for Ghanaians to know the whole truth surrounding the saga''.

A spokesman for the former vice President, Ekwow Spio Garbrah who disclosed this to the Evening News newspaper says he was doing so on the instructions of Prof Mills. He noted that if the findings of the proved that Prof Mills was indeed instructed by his former boss to reject the gifts, ''Ghanaians can best judge for themselves, what kind of President he (Prof Mills) would be''.

Mr Spio Garbrah denied that the former vice President was instructed by ex-President Rawlings to reject the gifts

Quizzed about how Prof Mills had foreknowledge that State Protocol officials were coming to his house with Christmas gifts, Mr Spio Garbrah said it was the Protocol officials themselves who rang Prof Mills’ residence and informed the security officials that they were on their way with gifts. The security men informed the Professor who then waited for the Protocol Officials at his balcony, and politely declined the offer.