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General News of Thursday, 18 August 2016

Source: starrfmonline.com

NPP’s allegations against Lordina unnecessary - Government

Lordina Mahama and President Mahama Lordina Mahama and President Mahama

Government has described allegations by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that First Lady, Lordina Mahama, is using millions of Ghanaian taxpayers’ money to buy votes through the sharing of gifts as “unnecessary diversion.”

The NPP Wednesday raised concerns over the “the lavish gifts” being shared by Mrs. Mahama across the country.

Acting General Secretary of the party, John Boadu told journalists at a press conference that “the wife of the President of the Republic is going around the country, with a fleet of trucks load of goodies, which she is sharing for votes. These run into millions of dollars."

The NPP, he explained are for charity work but are apprehensive on the timing of the “escalation of the First Lady’s gifts-sharing expedition and the volume and costs of the gifts being shared.”

He said during the 2012 elections the NDC over the last four months to the polls, expended “some $4 billion dollars that was not budgeted for was taken out of state coffers and spent in a desperate and reckless attempt for Mahama to hold on to power.”

He said the government’s refusal to disclose “the sources of funding for the First Lady's charity work is to add to the perception that the root and head of the corruption overwhelming the country is indeed the First Family."

But speaking on Starr Today Wednesday, Deputy Communications Minister, Felix Ofusu Kwakye dismissed the NPP’s accusations stating that it was entirely pointless.

“…These are pretty unnecessary questions [NPP queries],” he told Bernard Nasara Saibu host of Starr Today, adding that they “are informed by a deliberate efforts to engage in partisan propaganda.”

He said Mrs. Mahama is simply following the long line of first ladies who have engaged in humanitarian activities including the wife of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, Madam Theresa Kufuor.

“…So why are they singling out Madam Lordina Mahama for this sort of scurrilous attack?” quizzed Mr. Kwakye, adding obviously “it is nothing more than partisan propaganda.”

“Again,” he continued, “I have seen the wife of Nana Akufo-Addo visit hospitals and market places and distribute items to those people. She is not the First Lady yet. Yet she distributes items to those people.”

He thus challenged the NPP to demonstrate accountability and transparency by revealing where Mrs. Akufo-Addo gets the money to finance those donations.

He said he is surprised the NPP is demanding accountability when it is among the most opaque organizations in the country where people are maimed over issues of transparency and accountability.

“These are unnecessary diversions that they are throwing in their view to water down the successes that we chalked in Cape Coast last Sunday and nothing more,” he stressed.