Opinions of Thursday, 15 March 2018

Columnist: Dawda Eric

After Dr. Opuni, who is next?

Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni, former COCOBOD CEO Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni, former COCOBOD CEO

I have said it before and I will continue to say it in clear terms that, in the upcoming days, Ghana is going to be an interesting country.

It has seriously started and I am happy it started on Abuga Pele and Philip Assibit whose conviction by the High Court some weeks ago sparked anger at the Upper East Region where NDC men and women decided to hit the street to protest against the jailing of the two NDC men who raped the public purse under GYEEDA which was only an avenue for "chop chop" by the NDC government.

Those who staged the demonstration were of the view that, the jailing of the two was only a scapegoat approach because the NDC government under Mahama decided to put the two on a *pedestrian* and a *sham* trial with the hope that, later they were going to be left off the hook but unfortunately, this government came and quickly threw the two to jail.

The "demonstrators" on their "placards "wondered why the main architect of the loot like Hon Clement Kofi Humado who signed terrible GYEEDA contracts without reasonable care was left out but only Abuga Pele and Assibit were put on a sham trial by Mahama.

The biggest mistake we made as Ghanaians was to give this country to the NDC to rule from 2008/2016 after former President Kufuor left office in 2008.

When former President Kufuor was in office, certain social intervention policies were introduced to help alleviate the sufferings of the ordinary Ghanaian.

Policies like LEAP, SCHOOL FEEDING, NHIS, FREE METRO MASS TRANSIT FOR STUDENTS, COCOA MASS SPRAYING and the likes. These were introduced at a time when there was no oil extraction in Ghana. It was only under the NDC the oil discovery by Kufuor saw extraction.

Mills and Mahama government inherited oil economy with the highest inflows. Even when they came to meet a public debt stock of GHC9 billion from Nkrumah's era to Kufuor, they ballooned it to GHC122 billion. This was the highest debt stock recorded in the history of Ghana and it was recorded under the Mills and Mahama's regime. Amidst the huge sums of oil revenue, the NDC's were still borrowing.

In 2010, the NDC government made payment (judgement debts) of GHC275,814.24M to person(s). Page 152 of the 2010 Auditor General report had this to say and I quote *In my view, these payments could have been avoided if due care was taken by some government officials in the course of exercising their official duties*.

The likes of the Waterville, Isofoton and Woyome fraudulent payment which were declared as fraudulent and unconstitutional were included and classified as judgement debts.

The NDC came to government with criminal minds just to create, loot and share among themselves to the detriment of the ordinary Ghanaian. Their create, loot and share was properly explained by a learned judge of the supreme court of Ghana (Justice Jones Dotse).

Ghana would have gone bankrupt if we had retained the looter government led by the commander (John Mahama) in looting, plundering and the spinning of the public purse.

Early this morning, the former Cocoa Board C.E.O who was put under one-year criminal investigation by this government was served with a writ to appear before the High Court on 23rd March, 2018 for the case to begin.

27 charges have been levelled against him and I hope this will indeed send a "shock signal" to the likes of Dzifa Attivor, Julius Debrah, the current NDC national chairman, Betty Mould Iddrisu, Ebo Barton Oduro, Dr Kwabena Duffour, Sylvester Mensah, John Mahama himself and those whose names have not been mentioned but are currently on the waiting list.

Article 57(6) of the constitution of Ghana will soon be invoked against John Mahama for his involvement in the €13m diverted into private pockets which was meant for the development of the Western Region by the E.O Group of Company as part of their corporate social responsibilities.

After the mass jailing of those who looted this country, we shall see whether the NDC will get a flag bearer in 2020 elections. NDC acted inimical against the Republic of Ghana and one after the other, they shall be prosecuted.