You are here: HomeOpinionsArticles2006 04 19Article 102837

Opinions of Wednesday, 19 April 2006

Columnist: Amankwah, Nana Kofi

Kufour should act like the President?

Rewrite

If John Agyekum Kufour has the will and the courage to eradicate corruption in his administration, he will immediately suspend the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Charles Bintim, from all his duties until an unbiased investigation is completed. The insight newspapers that published this article were able to categorize the times and dates of all these deposits that were made in the Barclay Bank in Accra. The Bank is not disputing that the minister did not have such amount at their possession, so the President should distance himself from the minister until Charles Bintim proves to Ghanaians where he has gotten all his money. The minister claims the money does not belong to him, but for someone else so, let him prove his innocence.

If John Agyekum Kufour cares about accountability in his administration he should use this case to warn his ministers and also allow the ethics committee in parliament to indict the minister. There is one thing that I know; Kufour doesn?t have any motive to indict the people whom he has appointed to office if they commit unethical conduct. Alhaji Akwasi Yeboah, who was appointed by Kufour as a chief executive in Mamaponteng Kwabre east, who has captivated millions of cedis each as a part payment from some citizens at Mamaponteng to build a community market for the constituency . Almost six years ago, Akwasi Yeboah has misused these funds for his personal interest, but Kufour would not remove him from office.

The People of Mamponteng went to the street and demonstrated that they did not want Akwasi Yeboah in their constituency. John Agyekum Kufour, who does not have any respect for the people who voted for him twice, did not use any liberal solution to have a dialogue with the people of Mamponteng Community. Instead he chose a politically realist idea to deal with them by sending his cronies like Sampson Kwaku Boafo, the Ashanti regional minister, and Patricia Apppiagyei, the current chief executive of Kumasi and Kufuor?s Chief of staff Kwadwo Mpiani to go to Mamponteng and meet the assembly members with money to influence them to vote for Akwasi Yeboah to continue his dubious tricks. While the President is acting like he was unaware of, because he was out of the country. Now Kufour wants to tell Ghanaians that he is not in charge of the decision-making, but his chief of staff is, mendacity. Kufour did this to pave way for his favorite, Patricia Appiagyie, former assistant Headmistress who could not control his students, can now manage KMA. This is how Kufour does business with the nation. Common sense is common but it is not common to some people that is why we call it common sense. If Sampson Kwaku Boafo had common sense he should use it to develop the Ashanti Region.

Kufour has the nerve to go around the world and say the per capita income in Ghana is six hundred dollars, while per capita income in Mamponteng constituency is less than $50.00 per head. Due to the Chief Executive depriving us of economic opportunities, which has the only market where people do business in Mamponteng. This constituency has been destroyed since Kufuor came to power.

These individuals realize that currently there is no Chief in Mamaponteng the Capital of Kwabre east constituency who will stand tit for tat with them, so they went there and acted stupid. I have a message for them; they should wait till I swear in as the next chief in Mamponteng for them to realize whom they are dealing with. Sampson Kwaku Boafo, a former pastor, also a womanizer and now the Ashanti regional minister and his allies have to acknowledge that, My Lord will redeem his servants in Mamponteng from their economic hardships and injustices. My families have worked very hard to make Mamponteng the district Capital of Kwebre East. They have to sacrifice their houses for the district to use as offices before they built their own, while my parents were living in rental houses. As a result of this I am not going to allow any politician to use their temporal position to enrich themselves at the expense of the common people in Ghana, my constituency, Mamponteng -Kumasi and other regions especially the Ashanti region.

Nana Kofi Amankwah (New York)

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.