Kufuor's Business Advisor strikes a deal for Quality Grain

Mr Oscar Hudson, uncle of Mrs Juliet Renee Cotton, nee Woodard, Chief Executive of Quality Grain (Ghana) Limited, who took the latter to court over her financial malfeasance in the Quality Grain Affair, has made a bid for the Company’s Aveyime rice project to be handed over to him.

And in his bid, he is being ably supported and encouraged by Mr Kwabena Darko, a business adviser to President Kufuor, described in the US correspondence as “a prominent Ghanaian business and political leader.”

Popularly known as ‘Akoko Darko’ in recognition of his very successful multi-billion-cedi poultry enterprise, Kwabena Darko was presidential candidate of the collapsed National Independent Party (NIP), which was one of the political parties that lost to the NDC in the 1992 presidential elections.

According to correspondence dated 16 November 2001, from Mr O. Jerome Green, Attorney for Oscar Hudson and Quality Grain Inc. (USA) addressed to Mr Elroy Sailor, Deputy Chief of Staff to US Congressman J.C. Watts, Mr Hudson is seeking the support of Congressman Watts “in the form of a letter endorsing Quality Grain (USA) under the leadership of Mr Hudson and lending his support for access to relevant USDA programmes.”

The letter explains this move as being at the instance of Mr Kwabena Darko, who also specifically referred to the recently passed “Farmer to Farmer” Bill in the US congress and discussion that he (Kwabena Darko) had had with Congressman Watts, Congresswoman Eva Clayton and Congressman William Jefferson, on the subject.

It is clear from these moves that the NPP had always had the agenda of taking over the Aveyime Rice Project and handing it over to Oscar Hudson, the embittered shareholder of Quality Grain (USA) and bitter rival of his own niece, Mrs Cotton, the Chief Executive of Quality Grain Company.

As is to be expected, Attorney O. Jerome Green’s letter does not disclose what is in it for Kwabena Darko and the NPP, but one can read between the lines and discern that this is not one of Preacherman Akoko Darko’s charitable deeds. These manoeuvres of the NPP are to be contrasted with the principled position taken by the NDC government when the Quality Grain (USA) boardroom fracas first broke during the period in office of the NDC in 1999.

Despite the intense lobbying of Oscar Hudson, which included his taking a trip down to Ghana to lobby Ghanaian officials in his battle with Mrs Cotton for the control of the company, to take sides with him in a bid to have the project handed over to him, the NDC government declined to get involved. He was politely asked to go back to the USA for the then shareholders of Quality Grain (USA) to sort their matter out in the US courts whiles the Ghana government took steps to ensure that the project in Ghana took off.

It is also important to note that the NPP through Kwabena Darko, is making all these moves in favour of Oscar Hudson whiles he (Oscar) is still holding the judgement of $7.5 million actual damages and $10 million punitive damages which he won in the US courts against Mrs Cotton, monies which legally and morally belong to the state of Ghana.

Instead of going after these monies, the NPP government is rather trying ex-NDC Ministers and officials for “willfully causing financial loss to the state” and aiding and abetting Oscar Hudson to add insult to injury by coming back to take over the Aveyime Rice Project.