GRi Press Review 07 - 02 - 2003
Bloody clash
looms at East Legon
Tema
(Greater Accra)
The
three assembly members are Richster Amarfio, Joseph Ashietey, aka Dalas, and Foster Bortey, who are also spokesmen and members of the
“Concerned members of NPP, Tema.”
The
MP, who is also the deputy majority leader, is seeking punitive damages against
the three for libel and is being represented by Modesta
Kpoduvia of Nokware
Chambers. The writ recaptured a news conference held by the concerned NPP
members on
It
said that the defendants at the said news conference falsely and maliciously
published or caused to be published statements, which among others questioned
why the target of the report did not receive a copy.
It
also questioned “why the SFO had not commented openly or contributed to the
controversy of the said report,” and “why the report was leaked out to the press
on a weekend at a time to coincide with the President’s arrival in Tema.” The
writ referred to the section of that publication labelled “the unseen hands.”
The
publication by the defendants stated that, “we suspect certain elements for
their personal and sectional interest to be manipulating certain persons to
discredit the MCE. We see this as purely internal party wrangling that should
not have gotten this far but we believe the MCE had been silent for far too
long. We want to know from Mr Aidoo why his team and himself moved their meeting from Mr Tuyee’s
residence to Mr Sarpong’s office? Did they not say
the former is rather close to the MCE?”
The
writ noted that by the words complained on, “the defendants meant and were
understood to mean that the plaintiff (Hon Aidoo) is
a parochial and self-seeking MP whose sole aim is to discredit the MCE by
inducing the publication of an SFO report in the print media.”
It
said the publication by the three assemblymen was deliberately to tarnish the
MP’s reputation and to incite his constituents against him. This has “greatly
injured his reputation, discredited his character and has brought him into
public ridicule, and contempt in view of the plaintiff’s position as the MP for
Tema West,” it ended. The High Court is, however yet to fix a date for hearing
to begin. – The Evening News
Send
your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
It
noted that the courage and conviction with which the NRP started the crusade
for national reformation did not conscientiously permit a merger knowing that
it would not sanctify its ideals and standards.
A
statement signed by Abdallah Ibrahim, the Secretary
to the constituency’s working committee, the party noted that an alliance
however might be considered only if those lofty ideals that heralded the Reform
Movement and the party were maintained and pursued for the benefit of all.
“We
also wish to call on the NWC and the Regional Working Committee (RWC) to
initiate programmes towards congress and to ensure that all the party’s
structures are vibrant to enable us to launch campaign for the 2004 elections,”
it said.
It
reminded the leadership of the party that there was a brighter future for
Reform and that, “all that we are asking is that leadership should know that
one cannot sow maize only to harvest rice. We cannot sit down and hope to win
elections knowing very well that others are working feverishly for the same
goal. If the party should win the next elections, it will depend upon us, and
what we do or say today.
It
asked the leadership of the party to come out on the state of affairs in the
party and on national issues to set their minds to rest. It expressed
dissatisfaction about the state of affairs of the party since the 2000 election
saying, “we did not launch the campaign for greater democracy and popular
participation in national affairs only to recoil into our shells, awaiting the
new government to commit blunder and scandal before we re-launch a fresh
crusade.”
The
statement noted that the general understanding was that Reform was to work and
expand itself to address issues of national concern even before “we get into
government.” “For that matter, the call for social justice, accountability and
transparency which were our cardinal principles should be given real meaning
first within our ranks and subsequently in national affairs,” it said.
It noted
that the prolonged silence of NWC on issues concerning national economics and
good governance seemed to have gained ground in sharp contrast to the
principles of the party.
“
Send
your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Bloody clash
looms at
Already tension in the area
has reached its zenith as the people of Nmai Dzorn have vowed to defend and protect their lands. Their
avowal, according to insiders, was due to similar illegal operations
perpetrated by the security personnel about three years ago that led to the
death of an elderly of the town, a week after he was subjected to torture.
It prompt measures are not
put in place to arrest the situation the tension in the area may escalate into
something else, “Chronicle” can report. Our sources within the Ghana Armed
Forces confirmed the involvement of some personnel of the army and said
punitive actions had been taken against the leader of the gang whose activities
had brought the name of the service into disrepute.
To add insult to injury,
about three weeks ago, one of the estates developers, Dr Mensah Quaye, former
NDC MP for Dadekotopon, managed to send police
personnel to arrest a number of private developers there. The genesis of the
tension could be traced to attempts by estates developers to wrest the land
from the people of Nmai Dzorn
without even paying a dime for it.
Notable among the estate
developers who were moving heaven and earth to annex the land from the people
of Nmai Dzorn are Dr Mensah
Maceranaky Quaye, the managing director of Harcbour Company Limited, Eric Afotey
Odai, and Adjei Konuah of
Salem Estate Limited.
The problems of the Nmai Dzorn people, who are under
the Teshie traditional council, can be traced to far back as the 1990s when
some of the mentioned estate developers approached them for land.
“Chronicle” gathered that in
1994, Afotey, led by a deputy director of the Survey
Department, approached the chiefs and elders of Nmai Dzorn for land. At the end of the meeting and negotiations,
he agreed to buy 400 plots of land at 3m cedis each. This brought the total
amount to 1.2bn cedis at that time.
Afotey had since paid only 205m cedis out of the 1.2bn
cedis. The 205m cedis was paid in four instalments and
it represented the cost of about 80 out of the 400 plots he proposed to
purchase. Since then, the paper gathered, Afotey has
not made any efforts to settle the balance of 995m cedis but strangely he has
started selling the plots to private individuals and estate developers. He is
reported to have given 200 plots to NTHC Company Limited.
When “Chronicle” contacted Afotey last week he promised to meet the “Chronicle”
reporter over the issue last Sunday, but has since then nothing has been heard
from him. So far the damage caused by Afotey and his
landguards is estimated to be running to 100m cedis in the last nine months.
On his part, Dr Quaye denied
using the landguards and security personnel to brutalise private developers in
the area. On the issue of the police personal, said that he had obtained an
order from a court to stop private developers.
When “Chronicle” reached the
police Public Relations Directorate, David Eklu, the
head of the department, confirmed that policemen were sent to the area to
arrest private developers following an order given to Quaye by a Tema Circuit
Court.
But when the paper asked Dr
Quaye to disclose whom he purchased his land from, it took sometime to release
the names of the people who sold the land to him. “I have all the documents
covering the land so why do you want to tell whom I bought the land from?” he
asked.
After initial hesitation
Quaye told “Chronicle” that he bought the land from the people of Nungua.
But documents sighted by the
paper, including some 1992 National Investigations Committee (NIC) reports on the
ownership of the land in question, clearly confirm that the area in contention
was for the people of Nmai Dzorn
and not even for the people of Ashale Botwe who had tried over the years to take over Nmai Dzorn lands.
It was gathered that Quaye
once approached the chief of Nmai Dzorn
to purchase the land in question but since then nothing had been heard from him
until recently, when he begun tormenting private developers with the help of
some landguards and security personnel.
Furthermore, “Chronicle” can
report that Adjei Konuah has also not paid for the
land he purchased from Nmai Dzorn.
He had only paid what is known as knocking fee. – Ghanaian Chronicle
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
The move to allow the
embattled national airline to handle cargo will go a long way to improve its
finances. The Minister of Roads and Transport, Dr Richard Anane said the
airline’s re-entry into the handling of cargo will not only dine unilaterally.
He said Ghana Airways will
negotiate with AFGO, the industry’s sole cargo handlers. Aviations analysts
believe that the monopoly granted to AFOG by the NDC government contributed
greatly to the woes of the national carrier, as it took away a big chunk from
its guaranteed income base.
Dr Anane who was briefing
journalists in
According to Dr Anane, the
joint-ventureship option was selected to ensure the injection of private
capital, management, expertise and operational efficiency. “In actualising our
choice of joint ventureship we took into consideration the need for a
prospective partner to assist us to achieve our vision of creating a
sub-regional hub.
The airline would help us
achieve the country’s Gateway Initiative that seeks to make
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareview.com
Accra (Greater Accra) 07
February 2003 - It has now come to light that the Audit Report, which could
have cleared some officials of the Ghana Water Company from any wrong-doing was
in fact never submitted to the Adade Commission to
help it in its probe into the company.
For that reason, the audit
report, published in the ‘Ghana Palaver’ last August, did not reflect in the Adade Commission’s report.
The audit report dealt with
the purchase of Khaki materials, in which differences in measurements,
lumped together, created an impression of serious disparity in prices. The
mistake was later defected in the records.
For instance, deliveries of
materials, which measured 54 x 60 per yard, were inadvertently recorded as
measuring 18 x 60 per yard. The difference of 36 x 60 per material
were recorded as surpluses.
Questions are being raised as
to why such a vital document could be kept away from the Commission, if the
intention was not that of finding cause “to nail” some top officials of the
company, at all costs and justify the ugly noises about corruption raised
against them, when the NPP came into office.
Meanwhile, despite the
discovery of the audit report, the new Board has announced its intention to let
the “axe fall”. –
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareviewcom
Accra (Greater Accra) 07
February 2003 - Last Tuesday, on Radio Gold, Johnson “General Mosquito” Asiedu-Nketiah, NDC MP for Wenchi West, caught the NPP
flat-footed when he confirmed an interview he had granted the Heritage
newspaper to the effect that the too many Special Assistants in the NPP
Government were simply a “jobs for the boys” strategy of appointing persons
with ministerial perks without designating them Ministers in order not to
appear to have exceeded the number of Ministers that the NDC Government had.
Earlier, Jake “Goebbels” Obetsebi-Lamptey, in answer to a Parliamentary
Question at the end of last year, informed Parliament that there were in all 27
Special Assistants in the NPP System. He did not name them, but gave an account
of their Conditions of Service, which were almost the same as those of
Ministers or at work Deputy Ministers.
Around the same time,
President Kufuor was “confessing” at a Press Conference that his criticism of
the number of NDC Ministers when he was in opposition was made out of ignorance
and naivety.
All of those point to only
one conclusion - the NPP has many, many more Ministers and Special Assistants
than the NDC could ever have dreamt of having. But the important revelation
about the NPP Special Assistants is that there is nothing special about them.
They do not have any special
qualifications, they do not have any unique experiences, they would not qualify
to be anywhere near the positions they occupy if they
had entered the Civil Service through regular channels.
The so-called Special
Assistants are mainly returnees from the
Their claim to fame is that
they helped in the NPP election effort, either by mobilising resources or as
part of the Party’s rigging machinery in the last elections. Even though Jake “Goebbels” put their number at 27, Ghana Palaver researchers
have identified 37 of such Special Assistants, and the number keeps rising. As is shown in the Table.
“The Ghana Palaver” is yet to
establish the identities of the Special Assistants for nine of the Ministers
and all of the Regional Ministers except one.
We are also yet to confirm
the number and identities of those in the offices of the President and the Vice
President. It is significant that for a Government that eats and breathes
transparency and wants to introduce a “Freedom of Information Act”, there is so
little information forthcoming about the number of and identity of its Special
Assistants.
Indeed it is significant that
the NPP Government, after two years in office, has nto
been able to publish the usual educational pictorial broadcast, “Know Your
Ministers – And their Deputies”, except in their case, they will have to add
“And Their Special Assistants”.
The Ghana Palaver, by today’s
publication is appealing to the general public, especially the Civil Servants
who know, to let us know who the unknown Special Assistants are, so that we can
publish a true record of the number and identities of the NPP Ministers, Deputy
Ministers, and Special Assistants. At least, for the records.
-
Send your comments to viewpoint@ghanareviewcom