Carl Wilson’s Dismissal And The Matters Arising -AAD

The Alliance for the Advancement of Democracy wishes to state that the brouhaha which had characterized the operations of the Confiscated Assets Committee and the personality of Mr. Carl Wilson; which ultimately resulted in his dismissal doesn’t address the corruptible practices, impropriety, abuse of power which had been associated with such an office and its operatives.

It must be significantly noted that Mr. Justice Ofoe (the trial judge), in his ruling of November 8, 2005 in a similar case in which Alhaji Moctar Bamba (former Deputy Minister for Presidential Affairs, while he was in charge of the auction of state properties) was dragged to court by Alhaji Williams Showumi (the Chairman, Ghana Auctioneers Association) as 3rd Defendant alongside others, Justice Ofoe said that, "Since all government properties are collectively owned as distinct from private ownership, it behooves on government officials who have the duty of assigning properties for auction to do their jobs transparently, fairly without bias, prejudice or dislike. It is within the province of an elected government and public officials entrusted with auction sale of government properties to so distribute these properties fairly and equally amongst the registered auctioneers”. Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution is instructive in this regard.

In sharp conflict to the concerns of Ghana Auctioneers Association at the time and the blatant violation of the ruling of Justice Ofoe and the letter of Article 296 of the 1992 Constitution , Alhaji Moctar Bamba (who was in-charge of auctioned vehicles and assets) said "it is the NPP who voted for us as Ministers of State; so whatever we do, we have to think about the 53% of the NPP people who voted for the party," he made such averment, in response to Radio Gold's morning show host, James Agyenim-Boateng on 23/11/2004.

The Ghana Auctioneers Association had, in a letter to President John Agyekum Kufuor, dated February 5 2003, and copied the chairman of the Council of State, disclosed that, 'the corruption and fraudulence were worse under Alhaji Bamba and his associates,' and therefore pleaded with Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor to set up an enquiry into the various cases of fraudulent practices in the auction sales of government properties. Unfortunately, there was no enquiry until Alhaji Moctar Bamba decided to resign.

Today, Carl Wilson had been dismissed for no apparent reason and we are told he is being investigated due to mere speculations and instigations. Carl Wilson’s dismissal raises more questions than answers. The modus operandi of the Confiscated assets committee is firmly rooted on the discretionary powers of the members and this can highly fuel abuse of power, corruption, suspicion, impropriety, partisanship, cronyism, etc. We hope the recurrent allegations which had characterized the office of Mr. Carl Wilson will truly be investigated and a permanent solution will be adopted to resolve all previous and current concerns.

It is curious to note that, the 200 or so self-acclaimed NDC Youth who spontaneously converged on the 25th March, 2010 at the NDC Headquarters and demanded that Mr. Carl Wilson be made to resign raises questions as to whether or not there are invisible hands behind their actions. Considering the time of the spontaneous convergence (before 8:00 am) of the protesters and their unanimous call for the resignation of Mr. Carl Wilson, we hope their actions were not orchestrated by any aggrieved or interest person(s) who have personal scores to settle with Mr. Carl Wilson.

AAD wishes to also condemn the emerging indiscipline within our political circles where self-acclaimed political activists (or foot-soldiers?) and social commentators have recklessly perpetuated violence with impunity and have maliciously maligned anyone they don’t seem to agree with. Such lawlessness if not curtailed in time could undermine our democratic gains.

We equally want to explicitly dispel the erroneous notion; that such conducts amount to the deepening of intra-party democracy and the consolidation of our fragile democracy. Contrary to that, AAD rather considers such irresponsible and lawless conducts as militating against the rule of law. Every political party activist must jealously guard and respect the conventional political channels and the modalities adopted for conflict resolution, seeking redress, etc within their parties. Anything, contrary to this is unacceptable and cannot consolidate our democratic gains.

Long Live Ghana, Long Live Democracy, Long Live AAD-Ghana!!!

Yours faithfully,

Justice Kutsienyo

Spokesperson, AAD-Ghana (0242-385-006)