Mutaka is cleared, however ………………..

Some few weeks ago the Minister for Youth and Sports, Hon. Alhaji Mohammed Mutaka Mubarak was hit with an absolutely unbelievable financial scandal. This inscrutable allegation is the first to occur under the able rule of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by H.E Prof. John Evans Atta - Mills. The allegations met a lot of commentaries from the opposition NPP who made a lot of farce out of the issue. Indeed, he was pronounced guilty by the prejudicious interrogation of the issue by the NPP propagandist, including AFAG, their media allies and ‘serial callers’. Their discourse sought to suggest that, the NDC was so corrupt that she lacked the moral capacity and locus to call for accountability of corrupt ex-government officials.

It is disappointingly ludicrous, to have heard radio stations seriously discussing topics like Mutaka spends GH¢ 674.02 on pampers, not to mention the banner headlines of news papers like the New Crusading Guide, Daily Guide, The Observer and the likes. It sparked a lot of debate at every gathering including market squares, where some sellers later resorted to selling their stuff by chanting ‘yees mutaka pampers’ to attract attention. This is unfortunate and utterly unacceptable for a developing country like Ghana to have her journalist misinform its patrons with impunity.

Fellow countrymen I would want to be emphatic that, the entire 17 point allegations which were submitted to the President and media houses had no single word spelt “p-a-m-p-e-r-s”. Rather, the allegation which was on point 6 stated that he spent GH¢ 674.02 on baby oil, baby food and mouth wash and requested for a refund from the imprest cashier. However, it was found out that the Minister had wanted to withdraw the receipts upon realizing that some items like the baby food, baby oil and the mouthwash should not have been paid for, but the Principal Accountant Mr. Adim Odoom assured him that everything was in order and that he had paid the refund from the imprest which was normal.

Secondly, it was alleged that he requested for a refund of GH¢ 15,200 with a receipt in the name of Zinabu Mubarak in respect of meat and other food items purchased from the market. However, it was found that the Minister never requested and was never paid GH¢ 15,200 as a refund for meat and other food items, but rather his driver submitted a receipt of household items totaling GH¢ 1,520 for refund but was later withdrawn and for that matter not paid.

Some allegations like the minister collected US $2,000.00 imprest for the finals of the CHAN tournament, US $10,000.00 for landing rights for the aircraft which took the government delegation to the CHAN, US $12,000.00 for gifts for the minister’s constituency on his last trip, personally arranged for accommodation and feeding of the Black Stars players in Kenya and Sudan, demanded the immediate payment of US $1,000.00 per match for the services of a mallam, allocated to his wife a VW Passat No. GT 1351 Z and to himself five (5) official vehicles were completely unfounded. Rather, the magnanimity of the Minister is beyond imagination, indeed he saved the country several thousands of Ghana Cedis through his practice of austerity, which was returned to the government chest and the Chief of Staff was duly informed in writing.

In a statement released by the government, it was stressed in most of the findings that the minister was either misinformed or told that his action were procedural, for that matter there was no cause for alarm, for instance when he requested for his family to travel by air to Kumasi, the Chief Director endorsed it. These same people made the allegation against the gentleman.

It was established that an amount of US$ 20,000.00 which was given to the Chief Director, Mr. Albert Anthony Ampong for onward delivery to the Minister by Mr. Adim Odoom, the principal accountant, and Mr. Lomotey who gave US$ 10,000.00 each, however the money was not handed over to the Minister. The VW Passat, GT 1351 Z was formerly used by the Director of Sports Development of the ministry Dr. Emmanuel Owusu Ansah and was taken from him by the Minister. This action by the Minister has been establish to be what instigated this gentleman and the Principal Accountant, Mr. Adim Odoom to pen down the 17 point allegations, which has been described by people as a grand scheme to unpopularise the minister and cause his dismissal. This emphasizes that the allegations were a bunch of baseless fabrication against the Minister, which makes it a serious offence punishable by law.

The entire occurrence is indicative of the fact that, the Chief Director and the Principal Accountant of the Ministry failed grossly to follow laid down administrative and financial procedures required of Civil Servants. It is even very outrageous for men of their caliber to have paid out sums of money as large as US$ 10,000.00 on two separate occasions without any documentation or evidence what so ever. Only God knows what has gone on in this Ministry in past years.

It couldn’t have been anything better than perfect, for the President to direct the head of the Civil Service to apply appropriate sanctions against Mr. Adim Odoom and Mr. Albert Anthony Ampong and also to order an audit into the affairs of the Sports Division of the Ministry of Youth and Sports covering the period 2001 to 2009.

But the big question is, why these gentlemen would attempt to derogate and assassinate Mutaka’s character. Fellow countrymen, I do not think they did this without any form of motivation. No one will sacrifice his office, without any form of motivation what so ever? The President should immediately order a forensic investigation into the scandal to bring out those behind the scheme.

OTOKUNOR BOAMAH PETER NDC Youth Activist Peter_otokunor@yahoo.com