The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has accused the Mahama-led government of not showing enough commitment to retrieve the GHȻ51.28 million paid to businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome.
At a press conference addressed by the Communications Director, Nana Akomea, at its headquarters in Accra on Thursday, March 17, 2016, he said the lack of proper evidence to implicate Woyome is a clear indication that government was conniving with some party members to loot the state.
According to him, President Mahama has not shown the needed guts adequate to fight corruption.
He said, "There is a clear vacuum in the national leadership in the fight against corruption."
"That the twist and turns that led to Mr Woyome being paid the GHS51.2 million clearly show a deliberate pattern of high-ranking NDC officials, aided by highly placed public servants, to connive and conspire with people, who are NDC-connected, to steal or misappropriate taxpayers’ money," he stated.
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"That the element of these classic plots of deliberate connivance and collusion are all present in the Woyome payout. In this particular case, the president at the time, President John Evans Atta Mills – that’s what we are told in the EOCO report – ordered that no monies should be paid to Mr Woyome, and that the ministers should go to court to defend the state.
"When they went to court, the same twist and turns evident in the Woyome case, had been replicated and runs through other massive fraudulent payouts, including the payout to Messrs Waterville, GYEEDA, SADA, Smarttys, and the like.
"The same pattern, the same collusion, the same conniving, the same sequencing of events that made the Woyome payout possible can be seen in all of these other payments," he added.
More here: Woyome to refund GHC51m in three years
Nana Akomea noted that "As a result of the thievery and plunder of officials, the people are faced with numerous challenges that otherwise could have been taken care of by the country’s resources."