"NDC Was Founded On Integrity"

The owner and publisher of the Chronicle newspaper, Nana Kofi Coomson has stated that former President, Jerry John Rawlings, the founder of the NDC is not a corrupt person. “I can’t put my hand on my heart and say Rawlings is corrupt,” Kofi Coomson stated. The NPP parliamentary aspirant was speaking recently on Metro TV’s political programme, Good Evening Ghana, hosted by Paul Adom-Okyere. He said there was a perception before and during the 2000 elections that created an atmosphere which fostered the demonisation of the NDC and its founder.

He also said that the National Democratic congress (NDC) has turned out not to be the corrupt party that many had claimed it was. These revelations by the one-time acerbic critic of ex-President Rawlings are in sharp contrast to claims by critics and opponents of the former president and the NDC. Nana Kofi Coomson confessed that he still lacks the evidence to substantiate a story he carried to the effect that former president Jerry Rawlings was using drug money to finance the 64 battalion. He recounted that in the run-up to the 2000 elections, he saw a story in the Geneva Tribune newspaper that a Ghanaian diplomat, Frank Benneh, was busted in Switzerland for narcotics and he (Coomson) decided to smear President Rawlings with the story.

On the issue of the personality to partner, Prof. Evans Atta Mills in the 2008 elections, Kofi Coomson said Hon. John Mahama comes across as a fine man. “There are NPP members who have plainly said that they will vote for the NDC if John Mahama was picked as running mate,” he said. Nana Kofi Coomson was speaking on a wide range of issues – areas the interview touched on were the recent allegation that he had forged an NPP letterhead, his parliamentary ambitions and the disparaging remarks he made about NPP presidential candidate, Nana Akufo Addo prior to the NPP congress.