Investigative Journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni insists his statement
that any idiot could use state resources to build infrastructure and
boast about it as contained in an article in November 2016 still stands.
Under the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration led by
President Nana Addo Dankwa AkufoA-Addo, he maintains that any idiot can
use taxes money to pay school fees for Senior High School (SHS) students
as was the case under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration
with infrastructure.
“In November 2016, I wrote an article in which I said any idiot could
use our money to build infrastructure and boast about that. I did not
see what Mahama had done as exceptional. In the same way, any idiot can
use our money to pay school fees for SHS students”, he stated wrote in a
post on his Facebook page sighted by MyNewsGh.com.
His upbeat is about government’s feet dragging in taking action in
series of corruption scandals that rocked the country with the promise
by the then opposition party it was going to deal with the matter
head-on but two and half years into office nothing seems to be
happening.
He cited the infamous GYEEDA scandal and steps former President John
Dramani Mahama took at the time when investigations uncovered underhand
dealings.
Read the full text of his write-up below;
EVEN AKUFO-ADDO’S WIFE WILL CHOOSE JOHN MAHAMA OVER HER HUSBAND ON THIS!
Some NPP activists say my comments on the Akufo-Addo government are
baseless. They are not! In November 2016, I wrote an article in which I
said any idiot could use our money to build infrastructure and boast
about that. I did not see what Mahama had done as exceptional. In the
same way, any idiot can use our money to pay school fees for SHS
students. One does not need to be a genius to do that. The opportunity
cost of John Mahama’s infrastructure could have been the payment of
fees. It’s just a matter of priority. My argument was, and still is,
that there’s more to leadership than using the tax payer’s money to do
things and boast. The main problem with our country and continent is
wastage resulting from greed and corruption. And that’s why I was
hopeful that an “incorruptible” and “no-nonsense” Akufo-Addo was the
Messiah Ghanaians needed in the post-Mahama era to restore hope and
decency into our national life. That’s why after two and a half years
into Akufo-Addo’s presidency, I hold the view that we bought nicely
packaged key soap at Circle, thinking it was a smartphone.
There’s a lot to say, but let me give you just one simple example, which
I think after reading, you will be left with no doubt that even Nana
Akufo-Addo’s wife would choose Mr. John Mahama over her husband in how
the two have dealt with the same scandal.
In 2013 I investigated the GYEEDA Corruption Scandal. The government and
the private sector were stealing our money through fraudulent
contracts. For four years, the NPP used my GYEEDA investigation as a
basis to call John Mahama corrupt. John Mahama took some actions, but
they were not enough. In March 2016, when Nana Akufo-Addo presented his
version of the state of the nation address, this was what he said of
Mahama’s action on GYEEDA and other scandals: “It is clear from the
actions taken on cases like judgment debts, the World Cup saga, GYEEDA,
SADA, the DVLA saga, the Metro Mass branding, etc. that the fight
against corruption is a sham. I say again, the so-called fight against
corruption is a sham.”
Here is what John Mahama did on the GYEEDA Scandal:
1. He caused a committee to be set up to probe further.
2. John Mahama canceled all the GYEEDA contracts, except the Zoomlion
Contract. The contracts were fraudulent in nature, and the Zoomlion
contract was the worst.
3. Mahama drafted a bill and passed the Youth Employment Agency Act
4. Mahama retrieved over GHc60 million from Roland Agambire’s companies
5. Mahama prosecuted and jailed two people, one being the NDC’s Abuga Pele, former NDC MP.
6. Roland Agambire’s rLG and other companies collapsed because of the actions taken by John Mahama’s government.
7. GYEEDA saw some reforms after the passage of the GYEEDA Bill into law.
8. Mahama did not award any of the companies a contract in GYEEDA.
Did I agree with Akufo-Addo that Mahama’s handling of GYEEDA was a sham?
Yes. The big culprits were left off the hook. Abuga Pele and Philip
Assibit were scapegoats, the fingerlings in the scandal. There were
hundreds of millions of cedis that were not retrieved from Zoomlion,
Better Ghana, and rLG. Mahama still kept the Zoomlion contract. This
contract allowed the government to pay 500 cedis to Zoomlion per sweeper
a month, but Zoomlion paid the sweepers 100 cedis and kept the rest as
management fees. Zoomlion claimed there were 45,000 sweepers so every
month, Zoomlion was paid 18 million cedis as management fees. This
contract expired in February 2013, and between 2013 and 2019, there is
no written agreement between Zoomlion and the government but we pay 270
million cedis to Zoomlion a year.
On November 16, 2016, three weeks to the 2016 election, the NPP held a
press conference and accused John Mahama and Zoomlion of perpetuating
fraud against the people of Ghana based on this GYEEDA contract to
Zoomlion, which Mahama did not cancel. The NPP said John Mahama could
not cancel the Zoomlion contract and other such fraudulent contracts
because he (John Mahama) was benefitting directly from the theft.
Three weeks after that press conference Ghanaians voted massively for
Nana Akufo-Addo. What did Akufo-Addo do about the “fraudulent GYEEDA”
contract to Zoomlion?
Nana Akufo-Addo paid a visit to the man whom he and his opposition NPP
had accused of defrauding Ghanaians. He encouraged Joseph Siaw Agyepong
of Zoomlion to keep up with his good works. “When you are at the
forefront of doing things, like you are, you will be the subject of
controversy. It goes with the territory. I know you a little bit, and I
know you are capable of handling it. Stay focused,” President Akufo-Addo
told the Zoomlion CEO.
Akufo-Addo has extended that contract twice. The assemblies have been
screaming to the central government to allow them to supervise the
sweepers. This would optimize the service provided by the sweepers of
the YEA and save the government management fees paid to contractors. But
the incorruptible Akufo-Addo and the protector of our purse won’t hear
any of that.
But what has changed? Why would a businessman be fraudulent when you are
in opposition, but when you’re in government, he is a hard-working
entrepreneur who needs encouragement? Why would an act of corruption
under Mahama become mere “controversy” which comes with being at the
forefront of doing things? So if Mahama could not cancel the Zoomlion
contract because he was benefitting directly from the theft, why did
Nana Akufo-Addo not cancel it when he took over from Mahama? Is he
benefiting directly from the theft? Mahama canceled over 10 GYEEDA
contracts but the only remaining one, which Akfufo-Addo and his party
said was fraudulent has still not been canceled two and a half years
into his presidency.
The worst part is that the NPP government held a press conference in
February 2018 and told Ghanaians the contract was stinking and that they
would end it by June 2018, but it is still running.
If you look at the actions of Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo on the GYEEDA
scandal so far, which of these two presidents do you think Akufo-Addo’s
wife would choose as having acted better in the interest of Ghana?
NOTE: I have not regretted the stories I did in the Mahama era. The
wrongs of the Akufo-Addo era do not offset those done in the Mahama era.