Nduom reacts to Wikileaks reports

Elmina, Sept. 15, GNA - Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, the 2008 Presidential candidate of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP), on Thursday said allegations made against him by Mr. Ivor Greenstreet, the General Secretary of the CPP, in the Wikileaks cables were hurtful, harmful and injurious to his reputation.

He has therefore asked Mr. Greenstreet to publicly clear the air on whether he made the comments or not and render an apology to him (Dr. Nduom) if he did so or have himself to blame.

Dr. Nduom said he wondered why someone he had worked with and related so closely with could seek to tarnish his image.

He said he would have ignored them but for concerns raised by some of his business associates and other corporate people not only in the country but across the world, creating doubts about his integrity.

Among the comments were that Dr. Nduom had represented himself as holding US citizenship, a comment he perceived to be calculated to damage him and explained that he was proud as a citizen of Ghana and that he worked in the US with a valid green card.

On the allegations that he made his son to run his campaign in the Central Region for his 2008 Presidential bid, Dr. Nduom said it was never true and no party member could say so.

Also on claims that he methodically planned and paid party delegates to solicit for their votes, he said he needed not to pay anybody to vote for him because the delegates knew him and his contributions and support for the party over the years.

He said he never alienated parliamentary candidates or failed to raise funds to support them as the report claimed but singlehandedly paid for the posters and ballot papers of candidates who approached him while and assisted them financially on their campaign and also paid the filing fees of all the candidates during the 2008 elections.

Dr. Nduom denied he run a one-man show to take media attention away from the Party, explaining that some top officials decided not to join the campaign trail in 2008 and several pleadings by him and some elders to persuade them to join proved futile, saying Mr. Greenstreet himself was with him until some few months to the election.

On allegations that Dr. Nduom fielded a candidate to contest the Ellembelle seat in the Western Region against Mr, Fredrieck Blay, he said he has a long standing relationship with Mr. Blay and would never engage in such an act.

He said when the Central Committee of the Party asked Mr. Blay to step aside in the 2008 general elections he was the only person who stood up against it appealing to the Committee to give Mr. Blay another chance.

Dr Nduom said he was prepared to accept the apology or denials of Mr. Greenstreet for the sake of unity of the Party but will advise himself if he failed to come out to clear the air because “the reputation of a man is what goes with him, dead or alive”.