Ghana Needs Akufo-Addo Never Than Before?

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Category: Special Reports

Created on Tuesday, 17 June 2014 00:00

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Ghana Needs Akufo-Addo Never Than Before?

…Shirley Ayorkor-Botwe states yes. As Samuel Atta Akyea flies Akufo-Addo 2016 Campaign under the theme: “Ghana Deserves a Leadership that Thinks of the next Generation not the next Election.”

SPECIAL REPORT

Supporters for Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Aaddo's bid to win the NPP Presidential Primaries to lead the party for the 2016 presidential election launched their colourful and mammoth campaign at the Chestnut Community Centre, Saint Ann's Road, Near St Ann's Hospital, in North London, the United Kingdom.

Shirley Ayorkor-Botwe- the Honourable Member of Parliament for Anyaa Sowutuom, had sought to make a strong case that with the level of corruption, visionless leadership and economic stagnation and hopelessness and abject poverty in the country under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama, of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ghana needs the twice failed presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)- Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, never than before, at the Jubilee [Flagstaff] House, come 7 January 2017, so as to continue the said good works of Ex-President Kufuor.

The former minister under Kufuor’s government- whose speech followed that of lawyer Atta-Akyea: the heir MP of Nana Akufo-Addo, seemed to suggest that there are 100s of sitting NPP MPs, who openly support Nana Akufo-Addo’s political rematch. Of the 275 seats in the republic, the ruling NDC wields 147, while NPP has 122. Whereas the Independent candidates totals four, the pro-Nkrumahist parties- the People’s National Convention (PNC) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP), have two legislators.

In his keynote address delivered on Sunday, 15 June 2014, at the Centre, Samuel Atta-Akyea- the Honourable Member of Parliament for Akyem Abuakwa South, in the Eastern Region, made a rapturous and passionate appeal with his childhood hymn: “Me Wo Nyame- which he said his grandma- Awurama Kyerewa, used to sing at dawn and remains Nana Akufo-Addo’s favourite. He assures the organizers that making Akufo-Addo a flabearer of NPP for the 2016 presidential election is not a problem if you are coming from Ghana and that in any serious fight they must leave it first with God before their plans.

Backsliding from the traditional NPP slogan: Kukurudu- Eshi rado, rado, and perhaps, signaling warning to potential detractors of Nana Akufo-Addo’s presidential ambition that the current presidential project could no longer be negotiable, the Abuakwa South MP electrified the gathering with the following rehearsed slogan by tutoring the excited followers of Nana Addo that whenever he sounds: Kukurudu, they should response first: our eyes are red than before; Kukurudu- you will not step on our balls twice; and last but not the least, Kukurudu- there will be no Supreme Court- Jubilee House, Jubilee House!

Touching on the 2012 election rulings of the Supreme Court and of course, GYEEDA, SADA, ISOFOTON and legally or administratively, all the established odds and economic challenges or scandals bedeviling or hanging around the neck of the Mills-Mahama or NDC-led administrations, the mobbed lawyer Atta Akyea, who said he is in UK by the providence of Commonwealth Association of Parliamentarians meeting at the Westminster, said he finds wisdom in the Akufo-Addo’s 2016 attempt.

To paraphrase the words and the calculations of the Akyem Abuakwa South MP who arrived in London from Accra on the very day the Akufo-Addo 2016 initiative was being staged but for the wise decision of the organizers desire to see Nana Addo as the NPP’s chosen flagbearer and eventually, president-elect, come 7 December 2016, the MP said: “Nana Addo has expended some 37 years of his adult life in the service of Ghana- in politics and the legal practice. “No one can point a figure at Nana Akufo-Addo that he is corrupt. Yet people ask whether any good thing come out from Akyem Abuakwa South?” Hon Atta-Akyea believes that Ghana is going to have a president who comes from Akyem Abuakwa.

According to the Abuakwa South MP, Akufo-Addo is often vilified, attacked and struck down without just cause but he is never destroyed because he has God who never slumbers. This is embedded in Akddo's favourite Twi Hymn-“Me wo Nyame”. Atta-Akyea sums up Nana Addo’s reconciliatory traits and political tribulations, submitting that the former Attorney-General and Foreign Minister, functions in the spirit of Mother Theresa, who once observed:

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway.

In the opinion of the organizers of the event, the corruption-ridden government of Prez John Mahama could only be overthrown by the leadership of Nana Akufo Addo. They therefore, likened the NPP with its teeming presidential aspirants as husband with too many wives, who more often than not goes to bed hungry. “We are still the divorcee wife and husband ready to come back together for common good,” they said. In the opinion of the Akufo-Addo 2016 campaign organizers, the coming together for the NPP must see Nana Addo, described by Atta-Akyea as incorruptible and well-cultured, as the next NPP leader and President of the Republic.

It is submitted that unlike those politician who by virtue of their distressed family backgrounds enter politics with the desire of bettering their situation at the expense of the state, the contrary is of Nana Akufo-Addo, whether it relates among others, to the sleeping in good hotels or eating good joloff rice.

“Nana Akufo-Addo has seen it all. That’s why he will not steal Ghana’s money…his whole attitude is to serve. “By the circumstance of Akufo-Addo’s birth makes him a man of destiny,” Hon Atta-Akyea said with spontaneous clapping and wailing affirmations from the over 200 NPP stalwarts and sympathizers.

Thus of the six founding-fathers of Ghana- otherwise known as The Big Six: Joseph Boakye Dankwa (aka J.B. Dankwa); Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey, Mr. Ako Adjei, Mr. Edward Akufo-Addo, and Mr. William Ofori Atta, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is said to have blood-link with three of them. The Big Six is tied to the leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) who were arrested and detained under the Emergency Regulation in 1948 during disturbances in the Gold Coast.

Notwithstanding the above, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the former Attorney-General and Minister for Justice who also became the Foreign Affairs Minister under President J.A. Kufuor’s government, seems to have carved political and diplomatic niche for his personality. So Atta-Akyea states that those intending to contest Nana Akufo-Addo will be like tennis contest between him and Serena Williams of tennis fame. “Anybody [NPP supporter] who watched the Supreme Court hearing thinks he did not lose. Akufo-Addo won the 2012 election and therefore must not be changed if you are a true NPP.”

Atta-Akyea had said in his delivery that Nana Akufo-Addo had been washed clean through his political career and therefore; if a new person is presented now, it is going to problems for NPP as unknown problems are going to be exposed. “People say Akufo-Addo is old but see Caleb in the Bible. He was 80 years old when he led the Israelites to war. Although when Akufo-Addo studied in the UK his parents paid fees for his education yet, he intends to bring free Seniour High School to transform the Gugisberg economy. “Mahama government has no future for Ghana and there is a need for a regime change. Mills- “Mahama administrations have specialised in borrowing but not in thinking,” Hon Atta-Akyea argues.

To the Akufo-Addo for 2016 campaigners who might not be eligible voteres, the Akyem Abuakwa South MP advised them to use their remittances power to monitor their voting because of the future of Ghana and Nana Addo who just wish to leave a legacy. “There is no politician who is being afraid of by the NDC than Nana Addo.... It is only in Ghana where if someone is not having a contract with government they have to pay him... Over Gh50 million GYEEDA tree planting is like Asante, not having fish to eat but decided to come to Accra to plant cocoa trees on the sea,” Atta-Akyea puzzles.

The Honourable MP educates his audience that in Ghana now, our resources are being channeled for debt services although God seems to have blessed the NDC government more than the NPP or Kufuor’s government who never had oil money. But corruption and mismanagement appear to be NDC’s greatest enemies. The architects of the Akufo-Addo for 2016 have on their shoulders what they term as “Know your delegate project”, intended to help Nana Addo win the NPP impending primaries and the presidency, without insults and falsehood so that he can help deliver Ghanaians from slavery in their own country.”

Nana Addo is said to have shown a sign of gratitude to the organisers. Taking inspirations from the leaderships of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the late Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Hon Samuel Atta-Akyea seems to dismiss the health concerns raised by the opponents to Nana Addo’s presidency, stating that though he is below the age of 60, his various campaign trips with him make it difficult to brush aside the enduring stamina of Nana Addo who is at relative age of 70. He was quick however, to add that if knowingly NDC did same to Mills, why not Nana Addo, who could go for one term or more?

JusticeGhana observes that the majority of the organizers of the event were former NPP UK-Ireland Executives, who included but not limited to Ex-Chairman Atta Akrufi and Major Affum-Dankwa (rtd). Some current executives present were Richard Dombo: 1st Vice Chairman and Justice Appiah Antwi-Youth Organiser. Other dignitaries were Madam Susan Akomea, Nana Ohemaa Dokua and Executive-secretary of NPP UK- Mr Edmund Sekyere. Antwi Bosiako and Andy Owusu, were MCs of the event.

This special report is filed without the inputs of Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, of the Dankwa Institute (DI) and Hon. Ursula Owusu, who our source says wonders who is going to camapaign for the NPP if the speculated Agenda 2020 designed to thwart Nana Akufo-Addo’s 2016 bid were to be implemented. On Monday, 16 June 2014, lawyer Adraba Abrefa-Damoa sought to inform WBLS radio listeners that the Akufo-Addo for 2016 project is grounded to offer a fair counter-weight to groups such as Okatakyie Kwame Opoku-Agyeman’s Get Alan Kyerematen Elected (GAKE) presidential crusade.Okatakyie & Co appear to be worried about the steady decline of NPP’s electoral fortunes since 2008.

……

Reporters’ Note

Reporters’ Note The event scheduled to have started at 18PM, took momentum at about 20PM, where conservatively assessed, the over 200-capacity centre, could no longer contain its rising guests who had to find spaces on the centre’s corridors. Accordingly, JusticeGhana could not cover the delayed programmes due to other engagements. JusticeGhana was at the Chestnut Community Centre from 16:50 to 21:00HRS. [CROSS-SECTION OF ATTA-AKYEA'S SPEECH]

JusticeGhana

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Woyome: Kufuor interfered with bidding process for CAN 2008 stadia construction

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Category: Briefs & Memos

Created on Tuesday, 10 June 2014 00:00

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Woyome: Kufuor interfered with bidding process for CAN 2008 stadia construction

Businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome on Monday said that former President J. A. Kufuor interfered with the bidding process for stadia construction for the CAN 2008 tournament.

As a result of the interference, Woyome said, Shanghai Construction Group won the bid for the construction of stadia at Essipon and Tamale.

Testifying in his GH¢51.2 million criminal case, Woyome told the Financial Division of the High Court that although the bidding process had ended and his company had won the bid for the construction of the stadia, the procurement process was sidestepped to give the Chinese company undue advantage.

Slamming the cancellation of his contract, Woyome disclosed that Shanghai’s earlier quotation of $18 million as being the cost of constructing each stadium was “not realistic” and false because a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the government and the Chinese company quoted $38 million as the cost for constructing each stadium.

He supported his claim of what he termed “interference” on the part of former President ICufuor, with a Cabinet memo signed by a former Minister of Education and Sports, Mr Yaw Osafo-Marfo, and dated July 27,2005.

Snippets of the memo

The MoU, which has been tendered in evidence, stated, among other issues, that President Kufuor had expressed the eagerness to ensure the take-off of the project in good time and at a very competitive cost.

It said the former President was, therefore, of the view that the winning quotations were “rather too high” and hence recommended the construction of modest stadia he had come across while on a visit to Shanghai in China.

According to the memo, President Kufuor’s sentiments had earlier been communicated in a letter signed by Dr Kofi Amoah, then Chairman of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of CAN 2008, and dated July 20,2005.

In the said letter, Dr Amoah had informed Mr Osafo-Maafo that the Shanghai Construction Group had pleaded to be chosen to build a 15,000- capacity stadiujn within 21 months for $18 million.

In a related development, a letter containing Mr Osafo-Marfo’s challenge of the inclusion of the Shanghai Group’s bid is currently being sought for at the Ministries of Youth and Sports and Education.

After bid process

The Cabinet memo further pointed out that the Shanghai Group had not submitted any bid by February 7,2005 to be considered by the evaluation committee and that the company had expected the government to provide direct funding for the construction, although other firms had been rejected for not providing funding.

Led by his lawyer, Mr Sarfo Buabeng, to give his evidence-in- chief in the case in which he has been accused of defrauding by false pretence and causing financial loss to the state, Woyome said Mr Osafo-Maafo and Dr Amoah were sent to China to negotiate with the Shanghai Group.

According to the accused person, the MoU quoted $38 million as the cost of the construction of one stadium, instead of Shanghai’s earlier $18 million quotation.

Petition to Attorney-General

In an agitated tone, which was occasionally calmed by either his lawyer or the trial judge, Woyome stated that he was contracted by the government to do financial engineering to raise funds for the stadia construction project.

According to him, two per cent of the fund raised was to be paid to him and so after the government had abrogated the contract for the stadia construction project, he got in touch with a lawyer from London to represent his interest.

The accused person told the packed courtroom that his lawyer tried an amicable settlement of the matter with former President Kufuor’s government but all to no avail.

Following from that, the accused person said he consequently petitioned the then Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, who called for a meeting of all stakeholders.

He said at the said meeting, Waterville Holdings explained financial engineering initiated Woyome was separate from two contracts the government had with Waterville Holdings for stadia construction.

Woyome was said to have raised 1.1 billion euro facility from Banc Austria, and as part of the conditions for the release of the funds for stadia construction and other projects, the government was to accept facility by September 30,2005 or risk losing it.

The government did not accept said facility.

Settlement

The accused person told the court that he consolidated his claim began a process with the Attorney-General’s Department towards settlement.

He said it was eventually agreed that he should be paid two per the total arranged funding for which would have comprised i regional hospitals, one nation; accident and emergency hospital an 800-bed capacity, 10 region; and more than 60 plant and ti; culture facilities for the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC).

Ghana Mission in China

A letter from the Ghana Mission in China, signed by the then First Secretary, Mr Maxwell Nyarko-Lartey and dated August 11, 2005, which (furnished the LOC with particulars the Shanghai Group’s bid, was tendered in evidence after the court had overruled the prosecution’s objection to the tendering of the document.

Asked where he got the letter from, Woyome replied that it was a "public document” which, in effect, could be accessed by anyone.

Hearing continues on June 18, 2014.

Source: Daily Graphic

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Nana Konadu confirms receipt of $4m judgement debt

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Category: Briefs & Memos

Created on Tuesday, 10 June 2014 00:00

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Nana Konadu confirms receipt of $4m judgement debt

Former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings, yesterday appeared before the Commission of Enquiry investigating the payment of judgement debts to testify in the case in which her company was given $4,150, 27.50 as judgement debt.

She confirmed the payment to Calf Cocoa International, which is partly owned by Carridem Development Company Limited, the investment wing of the 31st December Women's Movement (DWM) of which she is the president, and China International Corporation Company, but insisted that the amount paid was in Cedis and not dollars.

Tony Lithur, who had represented Calf Cocoa in court, had told the Sole Commission that he secured $4.15 million for the company because the government at the time refused to release about $2.6 million to Calf Cocoa for its operations.

Interestingly, Nana Konadu went to the com-mission with a different lawyer - sidelining Tony Lithur, who secured the judgement debt for her.

Testimony

When the case, entitled 'The CEO, Calf Cocoa Inter-national versus the Attorney General' was called yesterday, Mrs. Rawlings mounted the witness box alongside her lawyer, George Bernard Shaw.

She told Sole Commissioner Justice Yaw Apau of the Court of Appeal that Carridem decided to go into the manufacturing of cocoa and subsequently had assistance from the government of China.

Mrs. Rawlings said Calf Cocoa was then given con-cessionary loan by the Chinese adding, "So we started Calf Cocoa in 1996 or 1997, -acquiring the land and everything. The shareholding was 49 percent for my organisation and 51 percent for the Chinese company brought to us by their government.

"We acquired this con-cessionary loan and we were supposed to take it in bits. Whenever we needed funds for the project we wrote to the Ministry of Finance and they gave us the amount that was requested for," she said.

The Problem

Nana Konadu articulated, "Sometime in 2002, we wrote to the ministry informing them that we had completed everything and we would like to start the project in 2003. It was at that time that we started having problems of who owned the company."

She maintained, "Politics unfortunately came to play in this project and it was difficult to get the money. From 2003 when we were supposed to have started manufacturing cocoa powder, cocoa cake and cocoa butter, it was impossible to start."

She said when things got out of hand, "The Chinese sort of pulled out because they said there was too much political interference," adding, "We decided to go to court to fight the case in 2005 and judgement was delivered in 2008."

According to the former First Lady, the government appealed against the case but lost against Calf Cocoa and in 2009 "we could actually go to the premises again."

She posited that in the process, facilities in the company deteriorated and water and electricity discon-nected, making refurbishment of the place very expensive.

Sabotage

Dometi Kofi Sorkpor, counsel for the commission, asked Nana Konadu if it was "this unnecessary inter-ference" from the government that resulted in the truncation of the project, and she said "absolutely, it has been so."

"From 2002 when the problem started, it has not stopped. It carried through to the new government of 2009 and it is carrying through in the government of today. I don't know whether they really want to let this place function so that we can employ the 2800 people that this factory can employ," Nana Konadu averred.

Justice Apau also enquired from her what was stopping the Chinese from continuing with the project since judgement had already been obtained and she replied that "they have given us option to sell their shares. I think they are not comfortable with what is going on."

According to her, "We tried on a number of occasions to get certain loans for the project but the banks have not been coming forth either. There was a huge amount that they said was going to be given to companies in cocoa production so we also applied to ADB. I know that some companies were given $8 million, $10 million and so on but till date our document has not even been processed."

Mrs. Rawlings added, "We have a new business plan. We are doing the grounds work. Two companies we contacted say they want to wait for the economy to get better before they can invest in the country."

Source: Daily Guide

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Nana Campaign Launch For London

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Category: NewsBrief

Created on Tuesday, 10 June 2014 00:00

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Nana Campaign Launch For London

The aspiration of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to lead the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 would be given a further boost this weekend when members of his campaign team in London, UK, are inaugurated.

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