NDC guru warns NPP: Don’t Push Us Far, Else You’ll Regret It

The outspoken former Member of Parliament (MP) for Jomoro, Mr. Lee Ocran has condemned the conduct of former government officials, including Ministers in the erstwhile administration of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), towards the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

He threatened that "They should not push us far, otherwise they will regret it”. Known in political circles as ‘Mr. No Nonsense’, Hon. Lee Ocran further warned: "We haven’t reached there yet, so they should comport themselves" Recalling what happened to the past NDC Ministers in 2001 when NPP took over power, the vociferous politician said "The Act that establishes the BNI is the same, it has not changed.

We are not repeating what they did to us, otherwise, we would have seized all their passports like they did to my wife and her friend -Aunti Yaa", he fumed. Speaking in a telephone interview with Melody FM, a Takoradi based Radio station recently, the former MP, who single handedly fought the Kufuor administration against the movement of the Osagyefo Barge from Efaso-Mangyea to Tema during the energy crisis, acknowledged that President Mills, "The President is a God-fearing man, if I were him, they (NPP) will not even be talking by now," he pointed out. Mr. Ocran, an avowed critic of the erstwhile NPP regime again descended heavily on the former government officials for making capital out of the alleged 3.6 billion cedis spent by the transitional team, saying "There is no common sense in their outcry”, he noted and alleged that the girl friend of the owner of the paper that quoted the figure is the one that prepares snack for parliament.

According to Mr. Ocran, who has been appointed by the President as an Ambassador-designate, the transitional team did not spend more than what was expected of them because they did the work to the best of their abilities. He said that instead of the former officials of the Kufuor administration rather thanking the Mills administration for taking their time to investigate activities of the past administration, they were rather shouting on roof tops about the way the BNI was conducting its investigations.

Touching on the position of the NPP that their members would no longer accept verbal invitation to the offices of the BNI, he said "Even if they don’t go, they will be arrested by the BNI, so what is their problem". Mr. Lee Ocran alleged that 2 billion old Ghana cedis was misused during the Ghana @50 on balloons alone, which was imported into the country by the wife of one of the 17 NPP presidential candidates.

At Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), he noted that the NPP left over 9 trillion old Ghana cedis debt which the current administration was working hard to pay. He however apologized to Ghanaians and asked them to exercise patience as the government works around the clock to resolve the numerous problems confronting the country. Mr. Ocran disclosed that the debt of TOR has affected the operations of Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), which is now on the verge of collapse, because the previous government borrowed 1billion dollars from the bank. The former MP, now an Ambassador designate, made all these comments on record and defended strongly the GH¢13,000 that was paid to each member of the transitional team.

source: The Chronicle