President's Portrait on New Currency Notes?

...NDC kingpin dares JAKE ... over new currency notes
THE WESTERN Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Nana Alex Asamoah, has called on the Minister of Information and Presidential Affairs, that of Finance and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to come out and deny or confirm rumours which are rife in NPP circles that the new ?20,000 and ?10,000 currency notes which would soon be introduced has President Kufuor’s portrait and the palace of a powerful Ashanti traditional ruler embossed on them.

According to Alex Asamoah, besides this rumour and the question mark hanging over the tendering and the award of contract for the printing of the yet-to-be introduced currency notes, available information indicates that the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana are in a tussle over the use of the President’s portrait and the palace of the said Ashanti traditional ruler and that the earlier they come out to clarify the issue, the better it would be Ghanaians.

Nana Asamoah, who was interacting with the Western Press Corp in Sekondi last Sunday morning, said apart from taking Ghana to the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) and the globe trotting he has embarked upon since he assumed office as Chief Executive of Ghana, President Kufuor and his government have done nothing for the country to merit his portrait being embossed on our national currency.

The Western Regional Chairman further told the press that he would have no cause to complain if the President and his government had done something good for the country within the short period that they have been in power.

According to Asamoah, ECOWAS of which Ghana is a leading member is currently championing the use of a single currency for the West African sub-region.

He, therefore, wondered why the NPP government is trying to come out with a new currency when they know that the cedi may soon be phased out of circulation.

Nana Alex Asamoah further told the press that President Kufuor’s NPP government has at the moment embarked upon political witch-hunting to eliminate all those they believe have sympathy towards the opposition NDC party by using flimsy excuses to sack them from their jobs.

According to him, this political harassment started with the workers of the National Mobilisation Programme (NMP) who were asked to go home by the government soon after taking over the reins of the government without citing any tangible reason(s).

The NDC kingpin further said as at the time that he was speaking to the press men, those working with the non-formal education division of the Ministry of Education have been asked to also go home without offering any tangible reason to support the decision.

According to Asamoah, if one considers that it was the same NPP in opposition that promised to create employment for Ghanaians it became very difficult for one to understand their action.

Nana Alex Asamoah, who spoke on a wide range of national issues, said that when he made public that the fact per diem is being paid to ministers of state and the President anytime they travel outside the country, the government came in to, one way or the other, confirm the per diem being paid to the ministers, but failed to comment on that of the President, which is twice the figure which was being paid by the NDC government.

The NDC chairman also told the journalists that the attitude of the government does not portray Ghana as a HIPC country.

He alleged that a District Chief Executive (DCE) in the Western Region has within the short period that he has been in office bought a brand new Mercedes Benz, but the government seems not to be doing anything about it.

“If it is an NDC DCE or minister that has done this, the whole world would have known by now,” he added.

Chairman Asamoah also told the reporters that the then minority leader, Hon. J. H. Mensah, once stated that it was not the day of the then opposition NPP to advise the government but they (NDC) would not do that.

According to him they would continue to criticize and advise the government since some of the economic decisions they are taking could have adverse effect on the next government they hope to form in 2004.

“We have studied the situation and have realized that some of the decisions are reversible which we hope to do when we come to power. Others too are irreversible and we shall not sit down unconcerned for them to do more to create problem for our next government,” he said.