....for Quality Grains Affair

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Monday expressed solidarity with three senior officials of the former government and two civil servants charged for their various roles in the 20-million dollar Quality Grains project at Aveyime in the Volta Region.

The party said the affected officials were carrying out government policy and implementing government decisions, adding that it is unfair to charge them with criminal offences when no evidence of wilfulness or culpability has been adduced.

"The former NDC government holds itself responsible for the Aveyime rice project. We take collective responsibility and we will stand by our comrades, who are being made scapegoats and objects of political persecution," Mr John Mahama, MP for Bole/Bamboi and former Minister of Communications, told a press conference in Accra.

At a press conference a couple of weeks ago, Nana Addo-Dankwah Akuffo-Addo, Attorney - General and Minister of Justice, said certain former government officials were to be blamed for the project.

Subsequently, five officials have been charged on various counts of allegedly causing financial loss to the state for their various roles in granting guarantees and loans to an American company undertaking the project.

They are former Finance Minister, Kwame Peprah, former Chief of Staff, Nana Ato Dadzie, Mr Ibrahim Adam, one time Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Dr George Sikpah-Yankee, formerly of the Finance Ministry and Dr Samuel Dapaah, Chief Director of MOFA.

Mr Mahama, who was said to be presenting the views of the former Cabinet, said that there was no basis for charging the ex-ministers and officials with wilfully causing financial loss to the state.

He said assets and equipment of the company, valued by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) at over 11 million dollars, are in Ghana and the government could take them over.

The floating charge, which was part of the agreement worked out by the former government, also covers both present and future assets of the company.

This includes a 7.2 million-dollar fine imposed by an Atlanta Court against the woman at the centre of the affair, Renee Cotton, in favour of Quality Grains Company.

He said the Aveyime land has been prepared, the people have been resettled, electricity, water and telephone have been extended to the site and the equipment is available and ready for rice production.

Mr Mahama said the NPP government itself is convinced that the project is still viable.

He referred to assertions made by Major Courage Quashigah, Minister of Food and Agriculture, who is reported to have expressed optimism about the project and had shown video slides of the state of the art equipment at the site to confirm his assertion.

Mr Mahama also quoted this year's budget statement in which Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo stated that government was drawing up a programme to fully utilise the 100,000 metric tons per year world class rice mill at the project site to its fullest capacity.

He said the NPP government subsequently granted a further loan of 25 million cedis to the company from the Farmers' Day account.

On the reported frivolous expenditure on houses, expensive cars, jewellery, church donations and payment of US taxes, the former cabinet spokesman said documents have shown that they had nothing to do with Ghana or Ghanaian officials charged by the Attorney-General.

He admitted, however, that the project at a point was confronted with a lot of obstacles, "not the least of which was the cantankerous attitude of Mrs Renee Cotton, the Chief Executive of the company."

He said at a point when the problems surfaced, the former Vice President John Atta Mills convened a meeting of all sectors including the SFO to look into the affair.

In answer to a question, Mr Mahama said the former cabinet guaranteed the loans for Mrs Cotton based on convincing written and oral presentations from the company.

He said the former government would have done so for any Ghanaian investor.

Mr Mahama said once the overall project and the original guarantee had been approved by Parliament, it was not necessary for the subsequent supplementary loans to go through fresh approval by the House.

At the Press conference were Mr Kwaku Baah, Vice-Chairman of the NDC, Alhaji Huudu Yahaya, General Secretary and some former ministers.