Okro Mouths On Fire! Ghana Politics and Wikileaks

The Wikileaks revelation continues to expose ‘okro mouth’ public officials who, for political expediency, ‘hand over’ vital information of the country to foreign diplomats.

Some of the people mentioned have come out strongly to deny the reports attributed to them by the United States diplomats, raising questions about the credibility of such reports as contained in the Wikileaks disclosure.

However, others have come under serious condemnation, with calls for some government appointees to resign because of what has been described as reckless comments.
The diplomatic cable which has been released from the archives tackles all political parties and developments in the country, from the years 1997  to 2010, exposing especially, issues affecting personalities of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

So far, names like Hannah Tetteh, Minister of Trade and Industry; Baba Jamal, a deputy Minister of Information; and Fiifi Kwetey, a deputy Minister of Finance, have popped up as having made statements to diplomats.

The rest are Akrasi Sarpong, the Executive Secretary of Narcotics Control Board; Ben Ephson, a self-acclaimed pollster and Editor of Daily Dispatch; as well as Kwesi Pratt, Managing Editor of Insight.

Hannah Tetteh
As then Head of Communications of the NDC’s Transition Team, Ms. Tetteh, now Minister of Trade and Industry, in a meeting with current United States Ambassador Donald G.
Teitelbaum, is reported on January 13, 2009 to have described in detail how the NDC, under President Mills, planned to collapse two Nkrumaist parties, the CPP and PNC, and merge them into the NDC, thereby turning Ghanaian politics into a two-party system.

“Tetteh confirmed that the NDC had paid dearly to obtain the votes of the two PNC members in Parliament (reftel), saying that in addition to accommodating the party with district, commission, and ambassadorial positions, both MPs would be receiving Deputy Ministerial jobs in return for their agreement to sit with the NDC to constitute a legislative majority.”

She had said, “Enforcing party discipline on critical votes would still be a key objective, since the margin was so thin. She also noted that the party was courting Alhaji Saani Iddi, the independent MP from Wulensi in the Northern Region, but that so far his demands (for both position and money) were unreasonable, and he would have to come back down to earth.”

She told the Ambassador that the NDC would no more stand on a Rawlings ideology but instead adopt an Nkrumaist philosophy which is in contravention of Article 6 of the NDC Constitution which says unequivocally that the party was established on the vision and leadership of President Rawlings.
The Minister was again quoted in one of the leaked cables as having told a US Embassy official that the choice of Justice Joyce Bamford Addo as Speaker of Parliament was purely because, among other things, “she is seen as someone who would take orders and be malleable to party discipline.”

Fiifi Kwettey and Kwesi Pratt Jnr

Ms Tetteh, who once served as a Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya, said of the Speaker in the leaked cables: “…First of all, she is a woman, and the NDC has a long way to go on gender balance in high office.

“Secondly, and most importantly, it was clear that the NPP could find no grounds to object to her. Lastly, she was seen as someone who would take orders and be malleable to party discipline. She said that for important votes, the party would remove (Bamford) Addo and put the First Deputy Speaker Edward (Doe) Adjaho into her place as a stronger enforcer.”

However, these comments have sparked a serious row in NDC circles, with calls on the minister to resign or apologise to the Speaker and Parliament for bringing the house into disrepute.

Baba Jamal
Baba Jamal, then NDC Deputy General Secretary, thumping his chest, dared to visit the ‘Mills health taboo’ when he told Scott Ticknor, a Political Chief at the US Embassy that then candidate JEA Mills had throat cancer.
“In Ghanaian culture, a politician cannot admit to illness, so we should not expect Mills to be forthcoming on this,” Jamal said. “However, Mills is actively campaigning and should have no trouble running the course of the campaign, Jamal said, while admitting that Mills’s voice sometimes gets hoarse on election tours.”

Fiifi Kwetey
Fiifi Kwetey was also a loose-talker who, according to Wikileaks, stated in no uncertain terms that a Muslim can never become the president of the Republic of Ghana.
Then NDC National Propaganda Secretary, when asked about the chances of victory of Vice President Aliu Mahama in the 2007 NPP presidential congress, Mr. Kwetey refused to comment on the strengths of the then vice president, but rather chose to focus on his religion as a Muslim.
“Concerning Vice President [Aliu] Mahama’s Muslim faith, religion is an important factor in Ghanaian politics and many Christian Ghanaians would never vote for a Muslim presidential candidate.”
He went on to say that whilst others would not openly say so, he was bold enough to state that a Muslim can never be President. “While most Ghanaians would not admit this openly, a Muslim could not be elected President of Ghana.”
Fiifi Kwettey has since declined to speak on the issue but rather, one of his boys was saying on Citi Fm yesterday that his comment was that NPP could not elect a Muslim and Northerner as its leader, even when Mr Kwettey’s comment was very clear.

Akrasi Sarpong
According to Wikileaks, Akrasi Sarpong, for his part, doubted President Mills’ commitment to fighting the menace of narcotic drugs, saying, “While President Mills has struck the right rhetorical tone regarding his commitment to combating narcotics, he has so far failed to provide adequate resources to NACOB.”
He said the staff of NACOB could be compromised because of low motivation.
“He underlined that the force is understaffed, underfunded, and under-resourced…Sarpong implied that police are open to corruption because of their personal financial situation,” the leak quoted.

Kwesi Pratt Jnr
Another ‘okro-mouth,’ Kwesi Pratt Jnr., according to Wikileaks, told US Embassy officials that NPP flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, smoked marijuana aka wee.
However, Mr. Pratt, while denying meeting US officials at the US Embassy in Accra, recalled an interaction he had with the said US official over a myriad of election issues; little did he know that the official was going to leak the information to the State Department.
He said he does not recall talking to the US official about Nana Akufo-Addo smoking wee.

Dr. Kwesi Aning
Dr. Kwesi Aning, head of Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre, is quoted by Wikileaks as having claimed that Nana Akufo-Addo had used drugs in his younger days, but that it was now “under control.”
He added cryptically that “you can check with German intelligence on that,” but did not indicate whether he was a childhood friend of the NPP flag-bearer.

Ben Ephson
Another person who has surprised many observers is Ben Ephson who is quoted by Wikileaks as saying that the NPP had tried to bribe him with at least $20,000 to produce a poll favorable to them in 2008 and named the party official offering the money as Gabby Otchere-Darko.
He also said, although without presenting the evidence he claimed to have, that the NPP tried to get the names of polling agents for other parties.

Ben Ephson said the NPP wanted to use this information to bribe agents, and was willing to pay $1,000 for polling agents to collaborate with vote rigging.

Asked by the US Embassy’s Political Affairs Officer (POLOFF) where the money was coming from, Ephson said it was coming out of government’s coffers, primarily from kickbacks on government-awarded contracts.

Gabby Otchere-Darko has since described the allegations as false.
He revealed that it was Ben Ephson who rather informed him of an opinion poll he had conducted on the upcoming poll, and needed financial support to complete it.
Gabby asked if Ben Ephson was then paid for declaring the polls for Nana Akufo-Addo in the second round.
By William Yaw Owusu

Visa Fraud, Who is responsible? Ghana Police or GFA?

The Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Football Association (GFA) are in disagreement over who is entirely responsible for visa fraud in the name of football, DAILY GUIDE SPORTS can confirm.
The Visa and Document Fraud department of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters believe that the responsibility for overseeing correct procedures within football lies with the supervisory body, and thus place their trust in them.

Concern was expressed by the Police department over the phenomenon of illegitimate football ‘invitations’ to foreign countries, endorsed by fake documents.

Francis Baah, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) for Document and Visa Fraud said, “When it comes to football, I expect the GFA to rather be up and doing, they should be alert. If the football authorities come to the police we give them respect. We assume they will tell us the truth.”

However, when DAILY GUIDE SPORTS approached the GFA about who should actually educate players about the possibility of football trafficking, they said the responsibility lies elsewhere.
“Right now we ask the Professional Player’s Association to educate people about it. They have gone through and experienced these unfortunate incidents. Most are retired professional football players,”
Emmanuel Gyimah, Deputy General Secretary of the GFA told DAILY GUIDE SPORTS.
Gyimah added, “This becomes a civil issue and we are not party to it. We receive a minority of documents which are fake and we send them back.”

The GFA did not express any motivation to root out ‘fake agents’ who sometimes work under the guise of being registered, GFA-endorsed agents.

Baah said that if this was the case, they should rethink their policy.
The GFA has the power to procure real visas and documents for potential players, however, scandals have previously led to the arrest of GFA officials.

Three GFA officials were arrested after ‘players’ were sent to Australia for a competition and, upon arrival, disappeared in the country. They were supposed to be playing in a tournament for disabled players, but the young men were not physically or mentally disadvantaged.
Baah expressed his opinion that the GFA should take control of the matter.

“Whoever is at the GFA must be a responsible person. If that person is not responsible, he can mislead everybody. Because with the Australia experience, I can tell you there was a letter from the Chief Executive of the National Sports Council (NSC), Mr Worlanyo Agra, but then when we checked, it was a forged signature,” he said.

The corruption which led to the Australia scandal is believed to be from lower down the management ladder at the GFA.
By Adam Coe and Jonathan Wiser / Ghana News

President Mills is a bad Leader; May be a good Christian – Says NPP s Kwabena Sarpong

 Mr Sarpong said on the Minority Caucus on MultiTV that it was inconceivable that the good Christian that the president professes to be, he would give his appointees a carte blanche to abuse, debase and denigrate their political opponents with casual abandon.

President J.E.A. Mills may be the best Christian in the world but he certainly is also a bad leader, says the NPP’s Kwabena Sarpong.

That, according to him is because the president does not appear to have a clue about what is going on around him.

Speaking on the Wednesday August 10 edition of Minority Caucus on MultiTV, the member of the New Patriotic Party Communications team, said the aloofness of president Mills had reached a crescendo as he watched while deputy Information Minister Mohammed Baba Jamal coached officials of the Information Services Department to lie to Ghanaians.
Baba Jamal told workers of the ISD that their duty “…is to make government look good, whatever the circumstance. If the government buys sheep and gives it as a gift, you are free to say it is a cow. You are free to say that. If the colour of the sheep is black, you can say it was a white colourful cow.,” He later clarified the statement, saying he was simply joking.

But Mr Sarpong has rejected that clarification, insisting the Deputy Information Minister meant every word he uttered.

To buttress his point, he quoted an unnamed report suggesting that the president commissioned 264 projects in three days – something he believes is simply not feasible. “That publication is proof that Baba Jamal meant every word that he said,” he added.

It was his contention that the comments of Baba Jamal were not unrelated to what he called the hijacking of GBC broadcasting by government spokespersons during the NDC’s just ended delegates’ congress – it’s all a grand design to infiltrate all state institutions and control and manipulate information flow with the sole objective of misinforming the public for the political gain of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He said while the government was entitled to, through the Ministry of Information and the ISD, disseminate its information to the general populace, what it was not entitled to, was to deliberately lie to, and deceive, the people.
Supporting his argument, co-panelist, Ms Ursula Owusu, said the audacity of the NDC was admirable.

Baba Jamal, in her opinion, must have had a lot of guts to tell Ghanaians in the face that the directives he issued to ISD workers in blatant disregard for the sanctity of his office, were just a joke.

“This attempt to downplay this incident is an affront to the intelligence of Ghanaians. To think that we will be gullible enough to believe what they are saying…you have to admire their audacity. They probably think that if they say it often enough and vociferously and loudly enough, people will believe it,” she stated.

She said unlike Baba Jamal’s suggestion that “Yours is to make government look good, whatever the circumstance,” the duty of the Information Ministry is “to present accurate information about what goes on in terms of government policies to the country – good or bad – if it is good, inform the people, if it is not so good inform the people so that collectively we can work to see how we can improve the delivery of governance to the people but if you tell them to lie, to embellish the truth, to twist facts to suit a predetermined agenda of painting the government in a positive light with an eye on the 2012 elections, what are we doing? How then can we trust any information put out by the government machinery”? she demanded.

Ms Owusu, who is the NPP’s Parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma South, believes the credibility of the NDC through the Deputy Minister’s comments, has been damaged beyond repair.

“On this issue, the NDC have destroyed their own credibility that nobody should ever believe anything any NDC person says because they have elevated lying, character assassination, and insults into a fine art and destroyed their own credibility in the making.

“To see a man’s true character, give him power; the arrogance of power being exhibited by the NDC appointees some of whom had never held down a job before being appointed ministers and hangers on this party is just mind boggling,” she added.

Source: Joy / Ghana Politics / Ghana News

Dead on arrival petition in Parliament - Freddie Blay comments on Politics of Insults

A former Deputy Speaker of Parliament believes a petition by an NDC group for Parliament to sanction one of its own is dead on arrival.

Freddie Blay told Joy News’ Dzifa Bampoh the action by the Research and Advocacy Platform against the MP for Okaikoi South, Nana Akomea is useful only for its nuisance value and will be thrown out by the Speaker.

The group claims the insulting comments passed by the MP on Newsfile on Joy FM and MultiTV over the weekend was at best unsavory and at worst a dent on Parliament’s own reputation.

Spokesperson of the group Felix Ofosu Kwakye told Joy News the Speaker must initiate sanctions against Nana Akomea for "denigrating" Parliament.

Kwakye said Akomea's reaction on the show is unbecoming of an MP and debased the sanctity of Parliament as an honourable institution.

If the comment was distasteful, the spokesperson of the Platform said failure by Nana Akomea to offer an apology, days after the event, was even more regrettable.

He was convinced the comments by James Agyenim Boateng which led to the reaction by Akomea were legitimate and cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be an insult.

Felix Ofosu Kwakye said if Parliament is serious and desirous of retaining their reputation then they must take remedial action against the MP.

The petition according to the group's spokesperson also included Kennedy Adjapong, MP for Assin North who he claimed had been on an insulting spree subjecting members of the NDC to some unprintable insults.

But Freddie Blay thinks the action by the group is unnecessary. He does not believe the action taken by the platform is the sure way to resolve the politics of insults, at least among Members of Parliament.

He said the petition runs counter to the Standing Orders of Parliament.

“One will refer to the publicity stunt. In the sense that it doesn’t go by the rules or the Standing Orders that somebody outside can bring a petition on the conduct of an individual outside Parliament who is not doing Parliamentary duty…”

“… I don’t think one will gain much by sending the matter by way of petition to Parliament.

Asked if the Speaker can throw out this petition, Freddie Blay said: “Absolutely. I don’t see it seeing the light of the day. It is only for its nuisance value.”

He said there are so many ways of checking insulting Parliamentarians other than sending a petition to Parliament.

Deputy Majority Leader Rashid Pelpuo told Joy News the petition will only be considered by the Privileges Committee of Parliament if it passes through an MP.

He said it will be flawed if the group fails to follow that procedure.

Source:  Ghana Politics / Ghana News

Maintain Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as running mate for Election 2012f - Ben Ephson tells Akufo-Addo

Pollster and Managing Editor of the Daily Dispatch Newspaper Ben Ephson, has advised the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party Nana Akufo-Addo to maintain Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as running mate for the 2012 general elections since he is a marketable candidate.

Mr. Ben Ephson made his submissions in an interview on XFM’s morning show.

Mr. Ephson said “in fact I think he (Akufo-Addo) should maintain Bawumia because, he lost not because of Bawumia but out of the party’s own arrogance that they will win by all means, so you just have to be careful with what you do. The issue of picking from the Northern region is important but you have to try and balance”.
“He should maintain Bawumia not because he is from the north. If Nana lost because of Bawumia, he should maintain Bawumia because he has been marketed enough and there is no mud to throw at him again. Any mud that will be thrown at him has been thrown already that is the advantage of maintaining your own margin of 40,000” Mr. Ephson explained.

He further stated that, a running mate from the Northern region for the NPP in the 2012 general elections is very important.

Some political pundits and reports have suggested names such as Mustapha Hamid, and Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as eligible running mates to Nana Addo in the 2012 general elections.

Political analyst, Dr. Kwesi Jonah has suggested that deputy Minority Leader in Parliament, Ambrose Dery would be a better running mate to the NPP flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo for the 2012 general elections than any of the names being floated as possibilities.

However, Ben Ephson insists Nana Addo retaining Mahamudu Bawumiah will be the best choice.

Source: Ghana Politics / Ghana News

Ghana Politics - Government is battling hard to save Mohammed Baba Jamal

Government is battling hard to save the image of Deputy Information Minister Mohammed Baba Jamal who has been linked to an audio recording on which the voice of someone who sounds like him is heard asking journalists to help the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to win the 2012 general elections by all means.
It has launched an intensive face-saving campaign to clear Jamal of any wrong-doing.
The campaign began in earnest yesterday at a press conference held at the Ministry of Information, with Baba Jamal himself in attendance.
Addressing anxious journalists was Jamal’s colleague deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa who sought to ridicule the story, insisting that the voice on the tape was computer-manipulated.

“Government wishes to emphasize that no government official including Baba Jamal has convened any secret meeting with any group of journalists anywhere in this country,” Ablakwa said.
He noted that “On Baba Jamal’s recent national tour of the regions, he held press conferences in all the ten regional capitals and openly engaged journalists” and that “at no time did he have any secret meeting with any group of journalists anywhere”.

Baba Jamal was alleged to have told journalists that they should paint the government white without any stain in order to retain the NDC in power in next year’s polls. The deputy Information Minister had equally told Information Services Department staff that when government bought a sheep, they should say it was a cow, for the government to look good.

However, what Ablakwa could not tell journalists was whether a mobile phone could be programmed in a way to change one’s voice to look like another person’s since he sought to demonstrate how a person’s voice could be manipulated with a mobile phone in a bid to justify his claim that Baba Jamal’s voice could have been possibly manipulated with a mobile phone.

In spite of accusing the Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Member of Parliament for Okaikoi-South, Nana Akomea and the NPP of having drawn their own conclusion on the issue, when its veracity or otherwise had not been ascertained, Ablakwa equally pronounced judgment on the matter:  “The voice on that mystery tape is not that of Baba Jamal and this fact would not change, no matter how hard Nana Akomea and the NPP try.”

He accused the NPP of desperately doing everything for political power, wondering why Nana Akomea was supposedly shifting the goal posts and asking the media to get a voice expert to ascertain the truth.

Ablakwa asked rhetorically, “what kind of responsible politicking is this?  Are these the standards we want in our politics?  What stopped Nana Akomea from engaging a voice expert and ascertaining the truth before going public to malign government and destroy the reputations of these young budding journalists while bringing them to odium and public ridicule?”

Regarding the alleged bank accounts of the said journalists, he explained that “preliminary investigations we have conducted reveal that no such accounts exist” and “checks we have conducted at the Nara Rural Bank indicate that no such accounts exist.  They have also indicated that it could not be possible for them to assign the same account number to more than one person.”

“The NYEP, through their leadership, have stated in absolute terms that there has never been any such scheme where journalists are bribed to make them report favourable stories for the government” and that they also “do not have these names in their database and that the only name they have from the NPP’s 15-member list is that of Abdulai Issaka who applied to be engaged on the scheme and attached to Metro TV.”

He explained that the state, through GBC, was a co-owner and had shares in Metro TV, insisting, “This development is very normal just as under the NPP, NYEP personnel were engaged at GBC for which we saw absolutely nothing wrong with.”

That, according to him, explained Abdulai Issaka’s NYEP internship letter.
“We see another act that cannot be described as impressive and responsible politicking on the part of the NPP when they claim all 15 including journalists working for fully owned private media houses are on a phantom NYEP scheme,” he stated.

However, some of the journalists had confirmed that they were issued with appointment letters but turned them down because they found it very unethical.

Whilst government claims to support investigation into the issue, it has asked stakeholders not to lose sight of the fact that there are criminal dimensions to this matter which have to do with what he described as ‘concocted’ voice recording and forged bank accounts.

The Information Ministry was said to have referred the matter to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) whilst the National Security Council Secretariat has also written to Baba Jamal for his comments on the matter.

Baba Jamal was also said to have petitioned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) through his lawyers, asking him to institute criminal investigations into the matter.


Source: Daily Guide / Ghana Politics / Ghana News

Politics of Insults far from being won as Nana Akomea insults Agyenim Boateng – You are a stupid fool

 On Saturday, the deputy Tourism Minister James Agyenim Boateng and the Head of the Communications Team of the New Patriotic Party Nana Akomeah rolled a contest of reason and intellectual discourse to one of abuse.

The slanderous war of words on this very high-profile news analysis programme exploded when the Communications Director for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Member of Parliament (MP) for Okaikoi South, Honourable Nana Akomea, chopped no words in labeling the Deputy Minister, “a stupid fool”.

This disgraceful verbal exchange begun when the Deputy Tourism Minister termed Nana Akomea “a shameful-ridiculous” person for organizing a press conference and alleging that a Deputy Minister for Information, Baba Jamal, under the tutelage of government tactics to use state funds to encourage Journalists to exaggerate and mislead stories to enhance the chances of the NDC ahead of the 2012 general elections. They were discussing the hotly controversial mystery tape in which an inaudible voice alleged to be that of Baba Jamal is heard making these promises of car and cash as reward for doing government’s request.

Although officials of the rulling government have slammed the content of the tape describing it as manufacture, but the opposition believes it is authentic and genuine and has therefore called for further investigation into it.

Representatives of the two parties were in no mood for courtesy and went all mouth raging with insults.

Earlier in his opening remarks Nana Akomea called for a voice expert to authenticate the voice on the tape. But the Deputy Tourism Minister James Agyenim Boateng deems no such expert is needed.

He stated, “...You find a Member of Parliament, a Director of Communications of the opposition political party who holds a press conference, denigrates a deputy minister of information, runs him down, runs a whole government machinery down; makes serious allegations as wanting to bribe and corrupt journalist. He sits on a platform like this, you give him the opportunity to prove the very issues that he calls a press conference and speaks to, then he says that lets find an expert to establish the authenticity of the tape. What kind of shameful conduct is this?”

“This is ridiculous and you ought not be involved in something like this,” Boateng said. “What is wrong with it?” Akomea questioned.

“The point is that everybody who knows Baba Jamal and has heard his voice before will tell you; you don’t need to be a voice expert to tell that that is not Baba Jamal’s voice on that tape. And I think it betrays the intelligence of those who addressed that press conference to come up with something as ridiculous as that," Boateng specified.

“I would not be insulted on this Programme,” Nana Akomea objected and asked for a withdrawal which the minister declined.

“Nana Akomea should be telling us when this meeting took place…” “There are simple, sensible, basic questions that ought to be asked as far as this tape is concerned,” he said, adding, “I will not unsay anything I have said in relation to this tape.”

“You are a stupid fool if you will sit on this program and call me unintelligent. You are a stupid fool and you are a government minister…you are calling me unintelligent. You are a very stupid fool. Stupid fool, you are being stupid,” Nana Akomea remonstrated toughly.

Both men refused to retract and apologise for their comments.

It appears that the war against politics of insults is far-off from being won.

Source: Ghana Politics / Ghana News