Today can report that some ministers and appointees of the erstwhile Mahama administration, alleged to have either engaged in corrupt practices or superintended over financial malfeasance, are living in fear, following the announcement by the ruling government that it will start prosecution of those people in October this year.
The Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, a fortnight ago, through its Deputy Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Joseph Kpemka, served notice to suspected corrupt officials of the former President John Dramani to be ready to face the full rigours of the law when they start prosecuting them in October.
According to him, government was currently building cases against such officials and will put them before the courts, come October “Some of these persons who have been daring us on television or radio have questions to answer in court.” “By October when we start moving to court with some of the cases, Ghanaians will know that we are serious and we are ready to fight corruption as a canker in this country and uproot it once and for all,” he said when he spoke on Citi FM.
Following that announcement, some alleged corrupt former appointees of the past administration who thought they could buy time with the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor, our investigations revealed, met over the weekend at an unknown place in the Volta Region to strategise on how to counter NPP’s government in court.
Among their strategies, Today’s further investigations uncovered, was a plan to incite supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to brand their arrest as political witch-hunting. That, a leading member of the opposition NDC party, who was also a former minister, but supports the prosecution of his colleagues told Today on condition of anonymity that the alleged corrupt appointee were already in touch with the party foot-soldiers and serial callers to prepare themselves for that task.
“In fact they will be bussing our supporters from all the regions down to Accra anytime anyone of them will be invited by either the CID or EOCO for investigation, so as to create tension in the country,” our source said. Apart from this strategy which emerged at the said meeting, Today gathered that they would also use some journalists to make the government look bad in the eyes of the international and donor communities, and by extension, discourage investors.
To crown it all, the alleged former corrupt appointees, Today further gathered, decided to hire the best legal brains in the country to defend them in court, although they resolved not to use pro-NPP lawyers. According to our investigations, the lawyers who were pencilled down at the meeting include Nana Ato Dadzie, Abraham Amaliba, Victor Adawuga, David Annan, Thaddeus Sory, Dr. Raymond Atubiga, Tony Lithur, Dominic Ayine and Osafo Boabeng.
Conspicuously missing on the list was Tsatu Tsikata, but our source said, Tsatsu had earlier told the NDC hierarchy that he would not defend any NDC member in court on corruption charges.
And those former alleged appointees who are likely to be prosecuted by the NPP’s government, our checks at the Flagstaff House revealed, include former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Health insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr. Sylvester Mensah, former National Coordinator of National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Mr. Kofi Portuphy, former CEO of Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Sedinam Tamakloe Attionu, former Minister of Transport, Dzifa Attivor and former Managing Director of Intercity State Transport Corporation, Mr. Samuel Nuamah Donkor.
Others are former Minister for Youth and Sports, Mr. Elvis Afryie Ankrah, former Executive Director of Ghana Standard Authority (GSA), Dr. George Crentsil, former CEO of Driver and Vehicle Licencing Authority (DVLA), Rudolph Berkley, former CEO of National Youth Authority (NYA), and current MP for Kumbugu constituency in the Northern Region, Ras Mubarack, former Minister of Sports and now MP for Bawku Central in the Upper East Region, Mahama Ayariga, National Organiser of NDC, Kofi Adams, and entrepreneur, Selassie Ibrahim.
The rest are Presidential Staffer, Kwesi Baffoe-Bonnie, former CEO of COCOBOD, Dr. Stephen K. Opuni, former Board Chairman of SSNIT, Professor Joshua Alabi, Presidential Aides, Stanislav Xoese Dogbe, and Vincent Senam Kuagbenu, who was the former Director of the National Service Secretariat, and one Sandow Seidu Kpedu, who was attached to the former First Lady, Mrs. Lordina Mahama, and many more.
Mahama boys hold secret meeting in V/R over prosecutions
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