Prof Oquaye & Mpiani are spewing “absolute nonsense”

Following recent warning by Matthew Addai an advisor to Isofoton SA and a self-acclaimed member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), to two other members not to muddy the waters, the NPP guru still seems dissatisfied and would not let go until the truth is unveiled.

Speaking on Radio Gold on Thursday, he emotively described the party leaders as liars.

His reason is that former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye together with Mr. Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani, then Chief of Staff under the erstwhile Kufour administration, cannot absolve themselves from blame because they played integral roles in the annulment of the Isofoton contract.

The man who claims he introduced Isofoton to the Kufour government and further led the former Minister of Energy, Ken Dapaah, to Spain to sign an agreement, held strongly that Professor Mike Oquaye and Mr. Mpiani were the real architects of the deal.

He was reacting to a Supreme Court order that Isofoton SA should refund the money it received as judgement debt from the Government of Ghana to a tune of about $400000 to the State.

The ruling, which ignited discussions in the public domain over the involvement of certain public officials in the payment of the debt to the company, saw Mr. Mpiani calling the bluff of his critics.

He was of a strong view that he had been vindicated by the ruling for his constant denial that the then government had a contract with the company to warrant any payment and refuted claims that he unilaterally abrogated the contract awarded to the Spanish firm to supply solar energy to the nation.

He explained that a Committee was set up by former President Kufour to screen a number of Spanish companies and determine the proficient one for the contract. A sifting was then done the Government of Ghana through the help of the Spanish government which, according to Mr. Mpiani, recommended which of the companies could be competent for the work.

“…The Committee decided that we should give this [the contract] to that company which had been recommended to us. This was sent to the President and the President approved and [I] being the Chairman wrote to the Ministry of agriculture that this project should be given to this company”.

“So that was the decision of Government which I, as the Chief of Staff, communicated to the Ministry concerned. So this wrong impression which goes all along that I abrogated the contract and I, on my own selected the company and gave the job to, is wrong; it’s not true,” he told Radio Gold.

Professor Mike Qquaye is said to have also denied any misconduct on his part, claiming that Isofoton was advised to tender in a new contract using an appropriate avenue following the promulgation of the Procurement Act.

Nonetheless, Mr. Addai thinks this claim is “absolute nonsense. The procurement law that was passed in 2003 did not take retrospective effect; so does contracts signed prior to the promulgation of the procurement law. Professor Quaye is a lawyer and a former lecturer in law at the University of Ghana; he’s talking nonsense,” and insisted that he “is not fit to hold public office of any kind in this country. He should quit from politics.”

He believed the two leaders are just “throwing dust into the eyes of the Ghanaian public. They know that ISOFOTON had a contract…It’s so painful to see leaders of a party that I once associated myself to lie so much to people. Did they think I was dead? Did they think I would never come out to speak? I know for a fact that they wish I had died…,” and therefore dared the NPP to challenge him to reveal documents unveiling their actions and inactions in connection with the Isofoton case.

To him, Isofoton was unfairly treated since they had a valid contract with the Kufour government and therefore called for thorough investigations into the case.

He wants Mr. Mpiani and Professor Mike Oquaye to “be investigated, questioned and if possible made to suffer a penalty; penalties which they when they were in power had inflicted on previous people in government.”