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Your govt is the 'most' corrupt — Kwakye Ofosu jabs Nana Addo's cousin

The former Deputy Minister of Communications, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, has said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's failure to fight corruption is crippling the country.

Nana Addo and John Mahama

Reacting to a comment by Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, a leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has no moral right to talk about corruption under the NPP government, Ofosu Kwakye said never has there been a more corrupt government in the country than the government led by Nana Addo.

Gabby said the NPP wants to break the 8-year election cycle in 2024 in order to protect Ghana and the gains being made for Ghanaians from the likes of "Mahama the Disaster".

He stated that Mahama was a disaster and wondered how he would handle the COVID-19 crisis and its disastrous impact on the economy.

Kwakye Ofosu in a sharp rebuttal to Gabby in a Facebook post said "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. It is a direct product of the graft and governmental putrefaction that has been orchestrated and executed by the clannish cabal that runs the country at the moment.

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"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.

"Despite the facade of being an outsider, Gabby's centrality in the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government is the worst kept secret this side of the Sahara. It is also widely known that any accounting to be done by his cousin at the end of his tenure may involve him given that he is front and center of many of the things that have brought this government into public opprobrium.

"He deploys many ludicrous claims in his insipid defense but there are a few that provide the most vivid illustration yet of the futility of his latest attempt to prove his cousin against genuine criticism.

"He expresses bewilderment that the NPP is unable to fend off charges of corruption emanating from the NDC, yet evidence of his cousin’s affinity for and endorsement of corruption is legion. 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.

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"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.

"It would be cliche to provide the list of dozens of glaring cases of corruption that his cousin has swept under the carpet and failed to deal with. Those cases and the subsequent inaction put it beyond debate that President Akufo-Akufo leads the most corrupt government in our nation’s history.

"For more nuanced anti-corruption watchers, it is the outright war of attrition and retribution waged by President Akufo-Addo against Daniel Domelovo, whom he removed for daring to surcharge his 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, that cement his legacy as the leader of Ghana’s most corrupt government ever.

"Mr. Otchere Darko also cites a GHS 20 billion debt service bill in 2016 as water-tight evidence of mismanagement of the economy under his cousin’s predecessor, President Mahama.

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"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 GHS 51 billion out of total tax revenue of GHS 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 is of course the direct product of the astronomical rise in the public debt which the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has ballooned from GHS 120 billion in 2016 to GHS 334 billion in June 2021.

"Anecdotal to this horrendous debt burden is the unsettling display of nepotism, conflict of interest and insider dealing by the very man who contracts the loans responsible for the swelling of the debt, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta. 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 this government’s strategy. In effect, the Finance Minister pays his own company millions of Ghana cedis to issue bonds on his behalf as Finance Minister.

"If ever evidence existed that the public purse has been treated as an Akufo-Addo family heirloom, this would be it.

"The biggest chink in Gabby’s defensive armor 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.

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"Here, he was simply displaying astonishing naïveté or he was 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 Mahama built at $30 million.

"There will be an accounting after the torrid Akufo-Addo years end in a little over three years from now and it is understandable that Gabby would have jitters at the prospect of he and his phalanx of cousins no longer ruling the roost as they do now.

"Placed within this context, it is perfectly understandable why Gabby would be so incensed at Mr. Mahama's candid observation."

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