Nduom Forced To Proceed On Leave Over Missing Money?

The ‘Ghanaian Democrat’ newspaper reports that the Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Co-operation, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom was forced to proceed on leave because of the alleged theft of several thousands of dollars from his office.

According to the newspaper, which is affiliated with the National Democratic Congress, the missing money was part of the contingency funds usually kept in the Minister’s safe in his office. The story quotes sources as saying that Dr. Nduom summoned all his staff and interrogated each of them on the missing money.

When he seemed to be making no headway to find the money, he informed President Kufuor. The President in turn informed some officials of the Bureau of National Investigations and the Criminal Investigations Department of the Police to assist in the investigations after which he urged Dr. Nduom to proceed on a short leave to look for money to replace the stolen money or find other means to solve the problem.

However in an interview with JOYFM, Dr. Nduom dismissed the report describing it as false. His vacation period was to have ended on the 20th of August and his absence beyond that deadline, until his return on Sunday night had fuelled the belief that report in the ‘Ghanaian Democrat’ could be true.

Dr. Nduom explains that he travels to the United States in July of every year to visit his children who are schooling in the US and also undergo a medical check up. According to him, the yearly vacation normally takes six weeks but he was forced to go on vacation for only two weeks because of his appointment as a Minister.

Dr. Ndoum wondered why his leave has been interpreted with different reasons saying that in the US, Europe and everywhere, politicians go on leave. “President Bush came into office in January but has gone on a month’s vacation. Here in Ghana, the parliamentarians who started sitting in January went in vacation in July and will be resuming in October. My leave is not unusual and I don’t understand why people are using it to cause mischief.”

The ‘Democrat’ report has also drawn a sharp response from the Minister of Media Relations, Elizabeth Ohene who condemned “the journalism of the Democrat. I don’t normally want to react to anything that is published in the Democrat because their publications are not worth my spending time on, but this is a serious allegation that I cannot let go without commenting.”

Miss Ohene noted that there has not been any stealing nor any loss of money as being alleged by the paper adding that Dr. Ndoum has resumed work and will be travelling to Togo on Monday morning. She regretted that after repealing the criminal libel law, papers like the Democrat have resorted to publishing such articles. “It is outrageous and people in this country will have to deal with such rubbish,” Miss Ohene added.