Opposition protests withdrawal of Rawlings' official vehicles

Ghana's opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has expressed concern over a directive to former President Jerry Rawlings to return official vehicles in his possession.

Rawlings and the government have been on a collision path with his comments last Friday calling for a "positive defiance" being interpreted as "potentially treasonable".

The former Ghanaian leader also described the current government as the "worst" in the country. Rawlings has been questioned several times this week by State agents over the comments.

A statement by the NDC said: "a letter received by the Office of the former President (on Thursday) evening from the Office of President (John) Kufuor and signed by his Chief of Staff directed that former President Rawlings should return vehicles in his possession to the Office of the President immediately".

The NDC said it is worried about another invitation to Rawlings by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to make another appearance before interrogators, saying this amounts to "harassment".

Rawlings, who has made three appearances to explain his comments, insists his call for "positive defiance" means that people should not wait until 2004 when the government is voted out of power before pointing out its faults.

The government said on Tuesday, Rawlings was meeting "a panel of investigators conducting an enquiry into matters of grave national security concerns.

"It is expected that the enquiry will attempt to clarify portions of the speech the former President made in Kumasi on Friday 10 August, 2002 at the inauguration of the Working Committee of the Women's Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)," the official statement said.

It added that: "the investigation will address the concerns of the Governance Committee of the Government on the potentially treasonable nature of Mr. Rawlings' statements made in Kumasi"

"Article 3 of the Constitution of the Republic provides that any person, either by himself or in concert with others attempts by any violent or other unlawful means to suspend or overthrow or abrogate the Constitution commits an offence of high treason for which the sentence upon conviction is death.

"Furthermore, the Criminal Code Act 29 provides in Section 182 that it shall be a treasonable felony to prepare or endeavour to procure by unlawful means any alteration of the law or policies of the Government," the government added.