Ruling trashes Rawling’s ‘Mr Clean’ image

ACCRA, Sunday

Details from a British court have painted a different picture of claims by Ghana’s former President, Mr Jerry Rawlings, that his ruling party has no place for corruption.

For a man who has always accused his successor, Mr John Kufuor, of corruption, the revelation that Rawlings’ ministers took bribes from a British company that was operating in Ghana must be ironic.

In fact, Mr Rawlings used the political platform last year to campaign for his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) with the claim that the party had no place for corrupt people.

But, the ruling by a Crown Court last month named several politicians as having once received bribes from the British construction firm Mabey & Johnson in the 1980s and the 1990s.

Pleaded guilty

Officials of the company pleaded guilty, to charges of corruption and violating sanctions, paying Ghanaian government officials a total of £470,000 in bribes.

Among those named in the ruling are present minister of Health, Dr George Sipa Yankey, former minister of Finance, and Mr Kwame Peprah and Dr Ato Quarshie, both who served under Mr Rawlings.

Mr Yankey has since tendered his resignation.

The bribes were part of a slush fund that the company set up to use to influence politicians through their agent, one Kwame Ofori.
When this agent’s influence waned in the period up to 1996, the company decided to replace him with the deputy treasurer of the then ruling party, the NDC, Mr Baba Kamara.

Mabey & Johnson executed three contracts, – totalling £26 million – two priority bridges and a bridge along a feeder road.

President John Atta-Mills did not make any immediate public pronouncement on the issue.

However on October 7, when he presented the letters of credence to newly appointed ambassadors, he left out Mr Kamara, who had been appointed as the country’s new High Commissioner to Nigeria and the man who was named as the key person in the bribery scandal.

Whilst media speculation has been rife that Mr Kamara had lost his job because of his connection to the scandal, official statement said, “the government was waiting for the Attorney-General’s decision on the issue.

Mr Rawlings, however, acted swiftly by issuing a statement in response to the court ruling on September 2, urging President Mills to act quickly and decisively on the bribery allegations involving the UK-based construction company.

But opposition critics of Mr Rawlings’ claim that his response was an attempt to whitewash the charges levelled against ministers who served under him.

Mr Rawlings claimed in his statement that probity, accountability and service to the people were the basis upon which the NDC was founded.
“I have espoused these tenets since 1982 and have consistently reminded the current NDC government of the need to urgently pursue and prosecute persons who have been and continue to remain unaccountable to the people. Ghanaians and the international community are watching closely how the Mills administration handles these allegations,” he added.
Mr Rawlings claimed in what seems to be a contradiction that since the NDC came to power in 2009, the party had failed to pursue and prosecute the criminal activities of the past New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, which in connivance with foreign partners, had stolen millions of dollars and accepted huge bribes.

‘‘Let us not destroy the reputation of the NDC by being indecisive on this scandal. Government must act immediately and decisively,” he emphasised.

However, political pressure group , Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) has challenged President Mills to demonstrate his commitment to fighting corruption by prosecuting members of his party and government accused of taking bribes in a UK court.
Public resources

At a press conference in Accra, a leading member of the group, Mr Anthony Kabo, said the president must without delay put before court NDC activists reported to have taken bribes from the UK company.
Mr Kabo said, the decision by the president to send the Attorney-General to investigate the issue in the UK was not right but rather a waste of public resources.

“The Attorney-General, on her visit, cannot question any institutionalised body in the UK, (because) she has no jurisdiction in that country to conduct investigations into corrupt practices,” Mr Akabo stated.

Meanwhile an Accra paper Daily Guide has reported that the government is to receive a total of £658,000 from Mabey & Johnson, as ‘reparation’ for causing financial loss to the country through over-pricing of contracts and bribing public officials and politicians belonging to the NDC), between December 1994 and August 1999.

No official comment has come from the government on the matter.