Former Deputy Information Minister, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, has issued a cryptic warning to Gabby Asare Otchere Darko that there will be an accounting after the ‘torrid Akufo-Addo government’ exits.
According to him, it is therefore understandable the Danquah Institute founder will have jitters at the prospects that he and his phalanx cousins will no longer wield power as they do now.
In a lengthy post on his Facebook Wall, Felix Kwakye noted that the cousin to President Akufo-Addo appears rankled by comments of former President John Dramani Mahama on this ‘Thank you’ tour.’
He observed that Gabby is particularly irked that Mr. Mahama stated the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is desperate to continue in government after 2024 to cover up for their unprecedented corruption and looting.
“Gabby arrogates to himself the right to determine what the NDC can or cannot comment on when he asserts that CSOs, who themselves have been at the receiving end of attacks by his elderly cousin, the President, for seeking to hold him to account, are better placed to comment on corruption and not the NDC.”
“While Gabby’s misplaced angst is amusing, it is the delusional bubble he has ensconced himself in that is most perplexing.”
“The widespread belief among Ghanaians that his cousin, Akufo-Addo, helms the most corrupt government under the fourth republic is hardly the doing of President Mahama or anyone else for that matter,” he observed.
According to him, Gabby expresses bewilderment that the NPP is unable to fend off charges of corruption emanating from the NDC despite evidence of Akufo-Addo’s legendary affinity for and endorsement of corruption.
“Only weeks ago, he laughed off the serious matter of the violation and vandalization of all relevant laws governing public procurement in Ghana by his Health Minister in the Sputnik V vaccine corruption scandal.”
“Despite having removed a whole Electoral Commissioner and putting former government officials on trial for supposed procurement breaches, President Akufo-Addo has flatly refused to dismiss and or prosecute the offending Health Minister.”
Felix noted that it would be a cliché to provide the list of dozens of glaring cases of corruption that President Akufo-Addo has swept under the carpet and failed to deal with.
According to him, hounding Yao Domelovo from office for surcharging the senior Minister over the Kroll corruption scandal and the deliberate interference in the work of Martin Amidu, which led to his resignation as Special Prosecutor cements President Akufo-Addo’s legacy as the leader of Ghana’s most corrupt government ever.
“Mr. Otchere Darko also cites a GH¢20 billion debt service bill in 2016 as water-tight evidence of mismanagement of the economy under his cousin’s predecessor, President Mahama.”
“The ace Akufo-Addo propaganda chief is blissfully unaware of course, that as far debt service bills go, this government has indicated in its own budget that as much as GH¢51 billion out of total tax revenue of GH¢55 billion will be used to service our debt this year.”
“This represents 91% of tax revenue. So Gabby believes somehow that it is better to use 91% of tax revenue to service debt in 2021 than it is to use just around 30% of tax revenue to service debt in 2016.”
The crippling debt service burden, he said, is the direct product of the astronomical rise in the public debt which the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has ballooned from GH¢120 billion in 2016 to GH¢334 billion in June 2021.
He noted this horrendous debt burden is the unsettling display of nepotism, conflict of interest and insider dealing by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta who contracts the loans responsible for the swelling of the debt.
He averred that Mr. Ofori Atta has tapped his own company, Data Bank as a transaction advisor for the issuance of bonds which have become a mainstay of the NPP government’s strategy and that in effect, the Finance Minister pays his own company millions of Ghana cedis to issue bonds on his behalf as Finance Minister.
Felix observed that if ever evidence existed that the public purse has been treated as an Akufo-Addo family heirloom, this would be it.
According to the former Deputy Minister, the biggest chink in Gabby’s defensive armour in the matter of Akufo-Addo’s corruption is the claim that his cousin is building District Hospitals for $17 million when they were built for $30 million under President Mahama.
Gabby, he said, is simply displaying astonishing naïveté or is feigning philistinism over the workings of a government he is overwhelmingly influential in.
“Surely, Gabby is aware that on the 19th of August, 2020 his cousin the President cut sod at Shama after awarding a contract for the construction of a 100 bed District Hospital at a cost of $41 million, which is $11 million higher than the 130 bed District hospitals John Maham built at $30 million.”
According to him, it is not too difficult to glean the basis of Mr. Otchere Darko’s latest intervention and his obvious discomfort at the mention of accountability after the Akufo-Addo era.
He noted that despite the facade of being an outsider, Gabby’s centrality in the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government is the worst kept secret in this side of the Sahara.
Felix stressed it is widely known that any accounting to be done by the President at the end of his tenure may involve Gabby given that he is front and center of many of the things that have brought this government into public opprobrium.
He argued that placed within this context, it is perfectly understandable why Gabby would be so incensed at Mr. Mahama’s candid observation.
Source: MyPublisher24.com