"Kufuor goes on the attack", says the Chronicle in its front page lead story.

The Chronicle says Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) whose pacifist posture during the 1996 presidential campaign earned him mixed reviews, dropped that stance in Takoradi last week and went on the offensive against President Rawlings and his aides. The paper says Mr Kufuor had been irked by what he thought was a naked show of power against defenceless traders who were being ejected from their trading habitat and being made to endure dehumanizing conditions by the Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly under the command of the Chief Executive, Lt-Col Kaku Korsah. According to the Chronicle, angered by the general helplessness of the people, Mr Kufuor went on the attack at a rally organised by the NPP at Takoradi, charging that the President and his aides had reduced Ghanaians to the level of slaves. GRI

In another front page story, the Chronicle reports that the Malaysian top management staff of Ghana Telecom have embarked on a buying spree, spending nearly three billion cedis on twelve gleaming brand-new gas-guzzling luxurious Mercedes Benz cars and dollar-indexed accommodation, barely seven months after snapping up 30 per cent shares of the company for only 38 million dollars. The Chronicle says the government shove aside charges of lack of transparency in the divestiture of the 30 per cent shares of the company to Telekom Malaysia and went ahead with the sale, keeping the remaining 70 per cent shares of the profit-making company. GRI