By William
Yaw Owusu
Monday January
15, 2018
Former President John Dramani Mahama has dismissed
the ‘stolen vehicles’ tag placed on members who served in his National
Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, describing it as ‘political rhetoric.’
He said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is hiding
behind the vehicles to ‘demonise’ members of his administration and as a
result, has dared the government to prosecute the ‘culprits,’ if there is any
evidence that they stole state vehicles.
“There might be one or two vehicles that might have
been misplaced; but 300 vehicles missing? By now people should have been
arrested and prosecuted over the missing vehicles,” he told Ghana Television (GTV) in an interview last week.
Flagstaff
House Tour
The former president said, “An inventory list of
government assets was taken, including vehicles. I remember when I took Nana
Addo (President Akufo-Addo) round and took him to the villa at the Flagstaff
House and stood in the first lady’s room and from there we could see a sea of
vehicles that were associated with the presidency and so Nana Addo himself
asked what those vehicles were doing there and I said those are the vehicles we
are handing over to you.
“There were 430 vehicles all parked there. Where are
300 vehicles going to be parked in this country? It is part of the political
rhetoric of demonizing the administration that is leaving.”
Interestingly, after he had taken President
Akufo-Addo to the pool, the then outgoing NDC administration reportedly started
dishing out the vehicles to its appointees and loved ones who didn’t deserve
the cars.
For instance, a certain Mawusi who was said to be a
secretary at the Chief of Staff’s office, was allegedly allocated an executive
Toyota Avalon driven by the president at a give-away price. Meanwhile, it had
been captured as a vehicle being bequeathed to the incoming NPP administration.
Auction
Sales
Some of Mr. Mahama’s appointees admitted in the heat
of the transition that the then outgoing government auctioned some of the state
vehicles to themselves at ridiculous prices, which set tongues wagging; and it
sharply contradicts what the former president is claiming.
A two-year-old Toyota Camry was reportedly valued at
GH¢4,000 - and all that happened after December 7, 2016, when the NDC had
miserably lost the crucial general election.
271
Vehicles
On Saturday, February 13, 2017 for instance, Sam
Nettey George, a former presidential staffer and current Member of Parliament (MP)
for Ningo Prampram, threw a bombshell when he said on Citi FM that 271 out of 641 vehicles were auctioned to the staffers
at the presidency. However, he later tried to claim that the radio station
misreported him, despite the fact that he was captured on tape.
On Citi FM’s
current affairs programme, ‘The Big Issues,’ Mr Sam George had said, “A number
of my colleagues chose to buy their cars,” and added that he was not part of
those who put in requests. “I, for personal reasons, declined to buy my car.”
He indicated, “I returned my car to the Director of
Logistics at the Office of the President.”
370
Handed To NPP
According to Sam George, the outgoing Mahama
government “put out the list of 641 vehicles we handed over - if my memory is
right - 370 vehicles to the Assets and Logistics Committee.”
“I spoke to the outgone Director of Logistics who
was a political appointee. He was responsible for the fleet because when I
needed a vehicle he brought me my Camry. He is the one I always went to when we
needed vehicles,” he explained, adding, “He took care of the president’s trip
every time vehicle fleet was going out, and I called him and said to him ‘tell
me how many vehicles we handed over.’”
Mr Sam George said that the Director of Logistics
had told him, “We handed over 370 vehicles, and these vehicles were physically
inspected by the Assets Committee led by Lawyer Ayikoi Otoo.”
Current Acting Director of Communications at the presidency,
Eugene Arhin, had stated that about 208 of the vehicles bequeathed to the
administration of Akufo-Addo by the NDC government could not be traced,
sparking furore.
He had said that there was big disparity between the
vehicles left over by the Mahama administration and what were actually handed
over to the new administration.
NDC’s
Response
But then Deputy Chief of Staff under the Mahama
administration, Johnny Osei Kofi, came out with a counter statement, describing
Mr. Arhin’s claims as “false, baseless and without merit.”
He explained that 641 vehicles were left for the new
administration without indicating that some of them had been taken away by
appointees at give-away prices.
Acquisition
Process
According to him, interested staffers applied to the
Chief of Staff and the processes were initiated from the Office of the
President.
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