Businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome last weekend virtually dropped on his knees pleading to be spared the ordeal of being the constant reference of corruption in the country.
Daily Guide gathered that in the course of the exchange of pleasantries among dignitaries at the funeral of the late Supreme Court Justice, Prof. A.K.P Kludze last week, Mr. Woyome approached Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) running mate in the 2012 Presidential elections and pleaded with him to stop poking him anytime he makes his economic analysis with special focus on corruption.
Sources told this paper that when Dr. Bawumia emerged at the funeral, several people started jostling to take pictures with him. Among them was Mr. Woyome, who quickly slipped in his reservations when he finally got the photo opportunity, albeit jokingly.
Eventually, Mustapha Hamid, the official spokesman of the 2012 Presidential candidate of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa, Akufo-Addo, on his Facebook wall wrote:
“Yesterday we were with Woyome at Prof. Justice Kludze’s funeral. And he came to ask Dr. Bawumia why he likes talking about him in his public speeches. Why won’t we talk about you?
His social media post prompted several comments that were mainly uncharitable to Aflred Woyome, a financier of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), who is facing trial for defrauding the state of a whopping GHC51 million in a questionable judgment debt.
“Woyome cannot be allowed to harass Bawumia in public…what a rude gesture… Is Bawumia not a Ghanaian to be concerned with such a loss to his country?...Dr. Bawumia as a Deputy Governor of Bank of Ghana could have stolen far more; if he did not and has seen another Ghanaian using fake documentation to obtain such colossal sum of money, why can’t he question it?...People like Woyome drive peaceful countries to war…” fumed one angry friend to Mustapha Hamid on facebook.
Apparently Mr. Hamid witnessed the whole episode between Alfred Woyome and Dr. Bawumia.
Before and after the presidential elections, Dr. Bawumia had delivered two key lectures focusing on the economy, citing several instances where he believed the John Mahama administration did not have a proper handle on how to salvage the declining economic variables such as the Cedis depreciation against major currencies and the galloping inflation.
The first public lecture was delivered by Dr. Bawumia in August 2012 at the Ferdinand Ayim Memorial Lectures while the second one was delivered recently at the inaugural lecture series of the late ex-Vice President Alahji Aliu Mahama.
At both lectures, he critically dissected the misdirection of the NDC’s economic policies and the alleged corruption cases that have bedeviled the current government.
In most of his analogies of the effects of corruption, Alfred Woyome’s judgment debt episode kept popping up.