Set Abodakpi Free -NPP MP

ONE OF the most vocal speakers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Members of Parliament (MPs) and MP for Assin North, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong, has called for the convicted MP for Keta, Mr. Dan Abodakpi to be set free.

He maintained that he should have been left off the hook, not by the law but for the sake of peace because he believes that a lot of people have committed more serious crimes for which the nation has lost more than $400,000 for which his colleague MP has been jailed for 10 years.

“Therefore we should in the name of peace let him go and make sure we protect the resources and assets of this country so that any other government which comes will not take government assets for himself or herself,” he advised.

According to him if all kinds of atrocities occurred during former President Jerry Rawlings’ reign, but by the virtue of constitutional immunities that he enjoys, he is still free to be living among the rest of Ghanaians he did not see why Dan Abodakpi should be jailed.

The outspoken Legislator noted that if we want to be fair in this country, then Rawlings, his wife, Kojo Tsikata, Asaase Gyimah and all those in charge of the country when some Ghanaians were tortured and killed in this country, as well as the torturers should be prosecuted.

“The torture and death of our family members are more serious than $400,000,” he asserted.

He said the law – causing financial loss to the state - should not be repealed because once it has been used against an individual, it should continue.

“I personally believe it should stay so that it would apply to members of the NPP next time when we are also not in power.”

He contended that the most serious aspect of the law was that if, for instance, you are a Minister and you have a document of about sixty pages to sign and you fail to read the whole document because of time constraint and you sign as a Minister, you are going to be held responsible and not the one who brought the document.

“I don’t think such a law is proper in this country; but it has been established and used against other people,” he submitted.

An Accra Fast Track High Court (FTC) on Monday convicted Mr. Dan Abodakpi, for willfully causing financial loss to the state in the amount of ¢2.7billion being the cedi equivalent of $400,000, when as the former deputy Minister for Trade and Industry, he co-chaired the Trade and Investment Programme (TIP) with the late Victor Selormey, then the Deputy Finance Minister.

The Court, presided over by Justice Stephen T. Farkye, an Appeal Court Judge sitting as an additional High Court Judge, found the former Minister, who is also the sitting MP for Keta Constituency in the Volta Region, guilty on seven counts of conspiracy to commit crime, defrauding by false pretences and causing financial loss to the state.

Abodakpi, who had been the MP for Keta Constituency since 1993 on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment with hard labour on all seven counts, to run concurrently.

The sentence is the maximum ever handed down on people convicted of the crime of causing financial loss to the state. The NDC MPs have since Tuesday announced their boycott of Parliamentary proceedings, saying they would no longer cooperate with the government on issues of governance until further notice.