"There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Exposed"

"There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Exposed" – Okudzeto Ablakwa

Details: Parent Category: Our Country; Category: Politics; Created on Saturday, 20 August 2011 00:00; Published Date; Hits: 3181

IEA Debate

"There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Exposed" – Okudzeto Ablakwa

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Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has slammed the Institute of Economic

Affairs (IEA) over the growing controversy surrounding a report culled from its (IEA)’s website, saying in their desperate effort to deny the report which has been on its website for some two years now, the IEA is only contradicting itself.

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) on August 14, 2011, sourced a report they published to the website of Ghana's premier public policy institute headlined “IEA slams NPP for abuse of incumbency in Election 2008”, criticizing the NPP for organizing a flamboyant campaign to the disadvantage of the then opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2008 general elections. The report makes stinging indictment on the NPP and how it flagrantly abused state resources to run a magnificent campaign in the last election (an election it lost to the then opposition NDC flagbearer John Mills).

But the IEA was quick to dissociate itself from the report, challenging its authenticity. An official from the institute reportedly told Myjoyonline.com on Monday they did not author the report but rather the report was presented to the institute to be reviewed. According to the said official, she had no idea who wrote the report and wondered where the GNA picked it from and why it chose to put it out.

Speaking to the issue on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana show, Okudzeto Ablakwa stated that although the ruling NDC has not officially decided whether to boycott future IEA debates, he personally is “totally disgusted” about how the IEA is running away from its own report.

According to him, those calls are from individual members of the party who are sickened by the situation and have therefore asked the party to boycott all IEA related activities.

“I am totally disgusted about how IEA is running away from its own report and I am wondering what will make the IEA hurriedly apologize to the NPP party chairman and the NPP, even before they make their position known officially on whether they authored that report and if they had it on their website. Besides, we do not need the IEA to tell us about the NPP’s abuse of incumbency; it is widely known,” he said.

According to the Deputy Information Minister, “the IEA did not have to bring itself to this unnecessary controversy just to make the NPP and its chairman happy because there is nothing hidden that will not be exposed”.

Source: Beatrice Adepa Frempong/peacefmonline.com