Dismissed Vanderpuije Dribbles National Security

After Embezzling Funds of School

Three years before he bought a one way ticket to Accra, the man who answers to the name Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, was arrested by the Police in the United States of America, arraigned before a court and faced charges of embezzlement of public funds of a school, in the state of South Carolina.

He took a deep breath, and refused to disclose this material information on his application forms, when he faced the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Vetting Committee for MMDCEs last month for an interview, and was confident that his links with the President will see him through.

He was passed through the vetting and received a clean bill of health from the offices of National Security who did a thorough job of scanning all sensitive jobs, such as the Mayor of the nation's capital, whose brief is to superintend over the relatively vast resources and potentially billions of cedis that the Government will allocate to Accra from the national budget, and the billions of cedis more that the capital will generate.

For the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and the National Security, this man's crime was such a cake walk that it beggars belief that they could not suss him out before passing him on for President Mills.

The details of his offence and the circumstances of his arrest and summons before the Board of Education is all over the world-wide web.

As it turns out, Dr. Vanderpuije's most recent record in America, where he lived for decades, was that he helped himself to schoolchildren's small dollar holdings, meant for their meals and school trips, and did a runner.

Dr. Vanderpuije, as he is known in the US, happened to be the Principal of William Perry Middle School in The Carolinas, and actually jumped at a plea bargain arrangement offered him, when the Police collared him for bilking the school funds, and surrendered him to the School Board of West Carolina to deal with him.

His certificates were withdrawn from him- the Educators certificates, as part of the punishment meted out to him. No wonder, he wondered aloud to The Chronicle "why should something that happened to me years ago be brought out now".

Dr. Vanderpuije, who was the former chairman of the United States of America branch of the National Democratic congress (NDC), was dealt leniently with, by the school, by first taking the money from him, and later withdrew his Educator Certificate after he reimbursed the District with the money.

Already, some assembly Members who opposed his nomination, which will now be withdrawn, moaned that the approval of the nomination of Dr. Vanderpuije would mar the Sister City Programme which is being held jointly by the US government and the Government of Ghana, since Dr. Vanderpuije has been rusticated by the US government Checks conducted by the paper on the South Carolina Department of Education website, which has the list of all Educators in the region, and has confirmed that Mr. Vanderpuiye under went a punitive action.

Dr. Vanderpuije told The Chronicle in an interview that he was surprised that an action that was meted out to him five years ago had been re-ignited.

"Why are my detractors using something that happened five years ago against me?" Meanwhile he has decided to refrain from commenting on the issue.