Statesman Lies about NDC Special Assistants...

But Quiet on NPP's 98 Special Assistants
Nana Akuffo-Addo has brought in a British import to be the editor of his Statesman newspaper. We know he will not last long, given the way he is behaving like a British bull in the Chinese shop of Ghanaian culture, and given all the fascinating stories about his antecedents in the UK which will be told at the appropriate time, and would therefore not have bothered with him the way others have, but for the outrageous lies he caused to be published in the Vol. 14, No. 21 of the Tuesday February 11, 2003 of the Statesman.

In the story headlined "NDC PAID $412,000 TO 6 SPECIAL ASSISTANTS", the Statesman took issue with your authoritative Ghana Palaver over a story we did on the NPP's Special Assistants but like the cowards that they appear to be, they refused to identify us by name. Ghana Palaver carried a story titled: "SPECIAL ASSISTANTS FOR SALE" in which we had published a few, only of some of the Special Assistants who are working with the NPP Government.

As a diversionary tactic which has become the hallmark of the Statesman -- remember the NPP's "Day of Shame" when the Minister of Finance Yaw Osafo-Maafo had to disgracefully, embarrassingly and humiliatingly announce his Government's withdrawal from the US$1 Billion scam loan that the NDC had right from the beginning predicted was a "419 scam" -- and the Statesman published that the PNDC had also entered into a similar US$2.5 Billion loan in its time -- the paper last Tuesday devoted the whole of its front page to an almost entirely fictitious story on the NDC having paid six Special Assistants US$412,000.

Let us take dear readers through the Statesman's story accusation by accusation and with appropriate responses so that we can appreciate the extent of the fabrications, outright lies, untruths, falsehoods and half truths that pass for a front page story of a newspaper that belongs to the whole Attorney-General of the Republic.

Accusation:

The NDC Government employed 37 Special Assistants as against 23 by the NPP Government.

Response: We do not know the exact number of Special Assistants that the NDC Government had, so we will not quibble over the figure of 37 quoted by the Statesman. But we do know that with the exception of the Presidency (including the Vice President's Office), the Minister of Finance and one or two other Ministries, no NDC Minister had a Special Assistant. On the contrary, as a matter of NPP policy, every NPP Minister and Regional Minister has at least one Special Assistant many of them US imports. As for the number of Special Assistants in the Presidency, including the Vice President's Office, they are as countless as the sand on the beach.

Response

Again we will not quibble with the fictional figure of 23 quoted by the Statesman, which must have been based on the story that we carried. Maybe we ought to remind the Statesman that our story carried the "To be continued tag", which means more names are to follow. We challenge the NPP Government to come out with the number and names of all the Special Assistants in the Presidency, the Ministries, the Regional Coordinating Councils and the Blue House.

Accusation:

The NDC Special Assistants received a much higher remuneration than the NPP ones are receiving.

Response: Our information is that this is false. The NPP Government has access to the records of both Governments. Let them publish the respective remunerations, and leave Ghanaians to be the judges. What the Statesman forgets is that at the appropriate time, the Auditor-General's Report will be issued, the Public Accounts Committee's Report will be laid before Parliament, and if there is one thing we know about Government accounts, it is that money once spent cannot be hidden.

Accusation:

The cumulative annual salary of just six of the NDC Special Assistants came up to $412,000 (?3.6 billion).

Response: Our investigation reveals that this is a figment of the Statesman's imagination. Based on information that we have, we challenge the Statesman to produce the names of the six persons, where they worked, and how much each received. Then the battle can be joined.

Accusation:

Former Vice President Professor John Evans Atta-Mills had three Special Assistants on call, including Messrs Kwesi Yankah, Turkson and Rojo Mettle-Nunoo.

Response:

The contradiction in this accusation should be obvious to even a JSS pupil. If Vice President John Evans Atta-Mills had three Special Assistants "on call", then it means he had exactly three Special Assistants. Once the sentence continues "including Messrs Kwesi Yankah, Turkson and Rojo Mettle-Nunoo?", it means there were more than three. Which is which, or who were the others? In any case, Messrs Kwesi Yankah and Turkson were Special Assistants on secondment from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and throughout the period they served as Special Assistants, they received the remuneration appropriate to their ranks in the IRS and were paid by the IRS.

Since the NDC lost the elections, Kwesi Yankah has returned to the IRS and Mr. Turkson has retired, having reached the retirement age. We contacted the two gentlemen who explained that exactly the same accusations were published by the Evening News some time last year and that they wrote rejoinders of denial, which the paper duly published. They were therefore surprised that the same story should be re-packaged and re-published in the Attorney-General's newspaper this year. Rojo Mettle-Nunoo was never a Special Assistant to Professor John Evans Atta-Mills. He was at all times the Director of the Non-Formal Education Division and was later transferred to the Ministry of Education. Accusation: The average paycheque for the NDC Special Assistants was approximately $68,000 a year.

Response:

The Statesman must prove the veracity of this claim, especially since he had earlier stated that the cumulative annual salary of just six of the NDC Special Assistants came to $412,000. Accusation: Nii Armah, a "Consultant to the Ministry of Energy" took home $10,000 per month--that is $120,000 per annum.

Response:

Ghana Palaver could not reach Mr. Amarquaye Amarh who we believe is the Nii Armah referred to in this accusation for his comments. Our information is that Mr. Amarh is a World Bank employee who was seconded to the Ministry of Energy. He was paid his normal World Bank salary by the World Bank.

Accusation:

The Ministry of Finance alone, the body, which supervised Ghana's descent to HIPC status, employed 11 extra pairs of hands as Special Assistants.

Response:

Our research has revealed that the Ministry of Finance had five Special Assistants -- Nii Okine Adjei, Mr. Joe Amamoo, Mr. Ishmael Aryeetey, Mr. J. B. Serebuor and Mr. Emmanuel Martey. Messrs Amamoo, Martey, Aryeetey and Serebuor are dealt with elsewhere in this story. Nii Adjei could not be reached by the Ghana Palaver but our further investigations showed that he was paid in dollars for a very short period before being transferred to the CEPS as Commissioner.

Accusation:

From 1992, Joe Amamoo and Martey both earned $72,000 each annually at the Ministry of Finance. Response: Let us not bother ourselves with the meaningless phrase "both earned $72,000 each" and get to the substance of the accusation.

Response

We contacted Mr. Amamoo and he informed us that the story is palpably false. According to him, between 1992-1995, he was a Consultant to the Ugandan Government based in Uganda and paid by the Ugandan Government and could not have been a Special Assistant to the Ghanaian Minister of Finance, let alone receive payment in dollars. He returned to Ghana in 1995 and was appointed Special Assistant to the Minister of Finance in charge of fiscal policy from 1996-2000.

During this time, he was on secondment from the IRS from where he had earlier been granted leave of absence without pay to enable him take up the appointment with the Ugandan Government. For the entire period that he was Special Assistant to the Minister of Finance, he was paid by the IRS as a Deputy Commissioner of Taxes, his substantive rank in the IRS, Mr. Amamoo confirmed to the Ghana Palaver that he never received any remuneration in dollars and described the accusation as a fabrication. For this reason, he said, he has instructed his lawyers to issue a writ against the Statesman for libel, especially since he had responded to a similar earlier story in the Evening News whose editor informed him at the time that the story was given them from official sources.

In the case of Martey, who we believe is Mr. Emmanuel Martey, we found out that he was engaged in 1997 and not 1992 as alleged by the Statesman story. He was seconded from the IMF and was paid his regular salary in dollars by the World Bank.

Accusation:

Also at Finance, Ishmael Ashietey took home $3,000 per month.

Response:

Ishmael Aryeetey (not Ashietey) admitted on Radio Gold that he was Special Assistant to the Minister of Finance from 1997 -- 2000, but denied that he was paid any remuneration at all for the period. He told Radio Gold that his lawyers are currently handling the matter. The Statesman's story that he took home $3,000 is an outright lie, he stated.

Accusation:

Opoku Manu (the Chief Director-cum-Special Assistant) was on $60,000 a year.

Response:

Mr. Kofi Opoku-Manu was the Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance until October, 2000 when he retired but because of his specialist knowledge, he was engaged as a Special Advisor to the Minister at the PUFMARP Secretariat. We made contact with Mr. Opoku Manu. He says that he worked for only 3 months in that position and was paid $3,000 a month, a total of $9,000, a very far cry from the $60,000 a year mischievously and maliciously quoted by the Statesman.

Accusation:

J. B. Serebuor was on $52,000 every 12 months.

Response:

Mr. J. B. Serebuor was seconded from the World Bank and drew his normal World Bank salary from that organisation.

Accusation:

Dr. Yankey, K. Amissah-Arthur and Mike Kosi were all Special Assistants to Dr. K. Botchwey, who carried on during Kwame Peprah's stewardship.

Response:

Dr. Yankey was at all times the substantive Head of the Private Sector and Investments Division of the Ministry of Finance until he left to head the Gateway Secretariat. At the Ministry, he was paid in cedis. He was never a Special Assistant, neither to Dr. K. Botchwey nor to Kwame Peprah. K. Amissah-Arthur was the Deputy Minister of Finance under both Dr. Kwesi Botchwey and Kwame Peprah. He, like all Deputy Ministers, was paid in cedis. He was neither Special Assistant to Kwesi Botchwey nor to Kwame Peprah. In the case of Mike Kosi, our investigations showed that he was seconded from the MDPI to the Ministry of Finance as a staff of that Ministry. We are not aware that he was paid in dollars. He has since the change of government returned to the MDPI.

Accusation:

The Ministry of Energy, which oversaw the economically devastating long periods of load shedding of 1998, had three consultants, including Dr. Wereko-Brobbey and Dr. Nii Narku.

Response:

Dr. Wereko-Brobbey was not Consultant to the Ministry of Energy at time of the unfortunate load shedding programme in 1998, having left the Ministry of Energy as Energy Policy Adviser in 1993. In fact, Dr. Wereko-Brobbey never served with the NDC Government. His entire period of service was with the PNDC. In 1998, Dr. Wereko-Brobbey had broken away from the NPP and formed his UGM political party at the time of which he was Founder, Leader, Chairman and Presidential candidate and was very busy campaigning for political power. But if indeed Dr. Wereko-Brobbey was Consultant to the Ministry of Energy that was so inept that it "oversaw the economically devastating long periods of loadshedding in 1998", then it is significant that this is the same man that President Kufuor has seen fit to appoint as Chief Executive of no mean an organisation than the Volta River Authority (VRA). We do know, though, that as Energy Policy Adviser to the Minister of Energy (not Special Assistant)! , Dr. Wereko-Brobbey was paid US$3,000 a month by the Commonwealth Secretariat and not by the Government of Ghana. Dr. Nii Narku must be Dr. Nii Narku Quaynor, the well-known Information Technology specialist.

To the best of our knowledge, he was a Consultant to the GNPC and never worked as a Special Assistant to any Minister.

Accusation:

The increasing popularity of Special Assistants is exemplified by what has been happening in the UK. Margaret Thatcher's government had seven, John Major's had 35, and as of September 2002, the Blair government had 73.

Response:

Kofi Wayo dealt effectively with this analogy in his Radio Gold interview of Thursday February 13, 2002. He said that in Britain, every child goes to school, people eat three times a day, they pay unemployment benefits, they have decent toilets in their homes. They can afford 73 Special Assistants. Ghana cannot afford it, so our priorities are different from their priorities.

Ministry                          Minister                                Special Assistant Remark

Roads & Transport          Dr. Richard W. Anane             Collins Duodu Bonsu

Attorney-General &          Nana Akufo-Addo                   Mrs. Cecilia Owusu-Adjei

Minister of Justice

Kwakye Resigned but appointed Head of the Ministry's Governance Project

                                   Senior Minister J. H. Mensah     Osei Bonsu

Upper West Region                                                     Steven Engwen

Volta Region                                                               Kofi Boateng

We know that every Minister, including even those without portfolio, and every Regional Minister, has at least one Special Assistant. With 24 Ministers and 10 Regional Ministers, that alone gives us 34 Special Assistants. But we are aware that the Minister of Information alone has five Special Assistants. The Minister of Finance has four. The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development has three. The Minister of Economic Planning and Regional Integration has four. The Vice President has about four. The President has about ten.

Already, that gives us 64 Special Assistants. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey told Radio Gold in his ill-fated interview during which Kofi Wayo revealed that he (Jake) had once referred to President Kufuor as "this Ashanti Bastard" that the Government intends for every Minister to have a Ministerial Spokesperson, which is simply a euphemism for a second Special Assistant per Minister. That will add another about 34 Special Assistants to the list, making a total of about 98 Special Assistants in the NPP Government! We repeat our challenge to the NPP Government to publish the names of all the Special Assistants their qualifications, work experience and, above all, remuneration.