Kwadwo Mpiani
Former Chief of Staff in the erstwhile Kufuor administration, Kwadwo Mpiani, has broken his silence on the controversial Isofoton $1.3millin judgment debt scandal with a strong plea of innocence.
Kwadwo Mpiani was accused by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, deputy Minister of Information, of arbitrarily abrogating the contract with the Spanish company, leading to a judgment debt of $1.3million.
Isofoton was allegedly contracted to execute the rural solar electrification project for Ghana under the Spanish protocol agreement with the Government of Ghana.
Government spokespersons in their ?sunlight campaigns? on judgment debts have berated Mpiani for abrogating the contract the Ministry of Agriculture signed with Isofoton and awarding it to Spanish company.
However, Mpiani, who was out of the country when the issue broke and had not been available for comment, said the NDC appointees got their facts wrong.
On Joy FM news analysis programme Newsfile, Saturday, the issue of judgment was revisited. Mpiani was provoked to respond to the issue when a text message called for his prosecution for his illegal termination of the Isofoton contract.
Kwadwo Mpiani called into the show saying his conduct in the Isofoton case was beyond reproach.
He said contrary to claims that he breached the Isofoton contract and awarded it to Elecnor, Mpiani said he followed religiously the agreement in the Spanish protocol signed with government in 2006.
He adduced a letter written by the Ministry of Finance in 2007 to the Attorney General which sought to dismiss claims of breach of contract and corresponding damages being made by Isofoton against the government of Ghana.
Per that letter, it was only the Ministry of Finance which had the authority to sign a contract with any Spanish company under the Spanish protocol agreed with government, he said.
The letter also spelt out the procedures for the award of contract and the implementation of the protocol.
According to Mpiani, the letter showed that the contract Isofoton was claiming to have with the government was not properly procured and signed by the appropriate institution- the Finance Ministry- and was justly abrogated.
He said the decision to abrogate that contract and award it to a new company was not unilaterally taken by him as critics would have the world believe but was taken by a committee he chaired.
According to him, the new company was selected after due process was followed which included informing the Ghana Embassy in Spain to shortlist the companies.
He said the committee then notified the Finance Ministry about the new company suggested by the agency contacted by the Ghana Embassy in Spain.
When asked who at the Finance Ministry signed the contract with the new Spanish company, Mpiani said he did not know but was confident the contract was signed by an official with the Finance Ministry as spelt out in the Spanish Protocol.
Sunlight Campaign
The NDC government, in recent times, has been raking up judgment debts issues with an attempt to blame the opposition NPP including its flagbearer, Nana addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, for most of the debt.
However, the Editor of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Malik Kweku Baako Jnr, has mocked what government spokespersons described as a sunlight campaign on judgment debt.
Kweku Baako said the government ?scored an own goal? in its futile attempt to rope in Nana Akufo-Addo in the controversial judgment debt saga.
Last Monday, a team of government officials, led by Okudzeto Ablakwa, brought out two letters written by Nana Addo- one as Attorney General in 2001 and the other as NPP flagbearer in 2011- justifying the claims of a Swiss Company Great Cape for an outstanding settlement of over a million dollars.
The company had its contract to supply clinker to the government of Ghana in 1978 breached and has been asking for settlement.
In 1997, the then NDC government paid an amount of $927,000 in what was expected to be the final payment of the debt owed the company which had Dr Nat Tanoh, brother of Goosie Tanoh, a member of the NDC as a local representative.
But Great Cape returned with a petition that the interest accrued on the debt was miscalculated and were still owed a little over a million dollars.
The petition was accepted by the Attorney General under the NDC-led government in 1999 before it lost power. When the NPP assumed the reins of power, the then Attorney General Nana Addo scrutinsed the petition and agreed with his predecessor that the claims being made by the Swiss company was legitimate and wrote to the Finance Ministry to make payments.
Somehow, the monies were not paid during the eight-year tenure of the NPP and the company is making demands of the Mills-led government to pay.
But the government said it had no documentation on the matter and asked the company to seek the authentication of the 2001 letter written by Nana Addo.
That informed Nana Addo?s 2011 letter as flagbearer of the NPP.
Okudzeto Ablakwa noted at the press conference that the NPP flagbearer could not privately write letters asking for companies to be paid judgment debts only to publicly criticize the payment.
That he said was insincere and hypocritical.
But Kweku Baako said the sunlight campaign by the government on judgment debt was only an exercise in deceit.
He said when a government declared it had a policy of transparency and full disclosure on judgment debts and yet it hid documents, then the integrity of the government had to be questioned.
Baako chronicled a litany of cases beginning with the AAL judgment debt saga, the Isofoton saga and the Great Cape saga in which he accused the government of being selective in the documents it brought to the public domain.
He said the sunlight campaign on judgment debt was not only a show of ineptitude but a failed attempt at fairness and justice by government.
He said nowhere did Nana Addo say he would not pay judgment debt; what he said, Baako posited, was that Woyome would not happen under his watch.
