Jake: Shame, Shame, Shame, That A President’s Directive Can Be So Flouted By Ministers

Prez Mills Related Stories National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey, says it is shameful on the part of President Mills to have lied by creating the impression that he had no knowledge of the GHc51m judgment debt which was paid to Mr. Agbesi Woyome. To him, President Mills cannot absolve himself from the controversial payment to Mr. Woyome since he is the leader of government and the report by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) is explicit that he (Mills) on two occasions, gave a directive that the monies should not be paid. “…it is a ‘shame, shame, shame, that upon all the powers vested in the president, his directives could be flouted by his own ministers,” he said. Speaking in an interview during PeaceFM News@6 on the Interim Report presented by EOCO to President Mills on the issue of judgment debts, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey said Alfred Woyome’s case was just a tip of the iceberg. “What we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg; there is a whole waft of different judgment debts that were not contested by this government. Some have been contested by the Kufour government successfully. Mr. Woyome is reported to have said why only him? Why is everybody looking at his payment and not the other payments? But all we saying is that the matter is before parliament, let parliament do a proper investigation so we can expose all of this criminal payments that has been entered into by this government led by his Excellency President John Evans Atta Mills,” he said. The head of EOCO, Mr. Mortey Akpadzi, on Thursday presented an Interim Report to President Mills which stated that Mr. Woyome manipulated documents and information in order to receive what is now termed as “gargantuan” judgment debts paid to an individual. The report said Mr. Woyome rode on the negligence and complicity of public officials to dupe the state of “money which he was clearly not entitled to”, adding that an amount of GhC400, 000 was “paid to the wife of Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh [Chief State Attorney ] on June 16, 2011” but failed to mention reasons behind that payment. Jake Obetsebi Lamptey Presenting the Interim Report to President Mills at the Osu, Castle, the EOCO Boss revealed that President Mills intervened on two occasions to stop the payment of monies to the embattled NDC bankroller, but his directives were spurned by some officials hence the payment of the GhC51 million. But the NPP National Chair scoffed at President Mills’ reported intervention saying the only intercession made was to sack the immediate past Attorney-General, Martin Amidu when he (Amidu) contested “this terrible gargantuan fraud” in court. “What have been the interventions of the president? One of his interventions seems to be that when his Attorney-General went to court, to go and expose this terrible gargantuan fraud that had been perpetuated upon the good people of Ghana, his reward was to be sacked. So the warning is so clear to the ministers, don’t do anything that I don’t want to hear about,” Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey said.

Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/Peacefmonline.com