The Brong Ahafo Regional Youth Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwame Baffoe Abronye is urging former President, John Mahama to immediately return the 50 million dollar agreement he signed to grant the two former Guantanamo Bay detainees entry into the country.
Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby had been held as enemy combatants but were cleared for release in 2009.
The two Yemenis were the first Guantanamo prisoners resettled in sub-Saharan Africa and arrived in January 2016.
Former President John Mahama has said the detainees were taken in after a direct request by the United States government and did not pose a security threat but several religious and civil society groups protested their transfer to Ghana since parliament didn’t approve of it.
But Abronye DC as he is popularly called speaking on the matter alleged that the NDC party received $50 million through a personal account purportedly to take care of the prisoners.
“It was the fifty million dollars that prompted NDC to receive them. It wasn’t out of mercy. The money didn’t pass through a government company. They added fifty million dollars to feed them. Mahama said it. It was the money that prompted them to receive. Ask Hannah Tetteh which bank account they channeled the money through…” he maintained.
He added that, initially, the erstwhile Mahama administration denied claims of any agreement papers on the detainees in favor to hinder parliamentary debates on accepting them in the country.
“This isn’t supposed to be ratification of agreement. Ghanaians should wake up to John Mahama. They hid the agreement papers. They didn’t want it to go to parliament; it is with this NPP government that the papers emerged. Where is the fifty million dollars Mahama…?” he queried.
According to the NPP organizer, the incumbent NPP government can’t proceed to cater for the detainees because the funds attached to their detainment in the country have been pocketed by the former President Mahama.
Moving forward, he has urged the ex-president to return the money if they want the two prisoners to stay otherwise they should return to their country.
“The money was given to NDC to take care of them. The NPP hasn’t seen the money so they can’t feed them. Where is the chop money? After the court ramification who is going to pay the money to feed them? Akufo-Addo is not supposed to look money for them. Mahama who gave the humanitarian grant should feed them with the money he took. We are using the tax payers’ money to feed them. It won’t work …” he said to Accra based Okay FM.
Listen to Abronye DC