Perry Okudzeto, Acting Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has described a political diversionary strategy the recent brouhaha ignited by the leading members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the controversial sale of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) drill ship.
�We have judgement debts fraudulently paid hanging to the tune of millions of cedis, dollars and euros. Competent counts have ordered retrieval of such amounts and yet no action is been taken by the Attorney General.
�We do not want to discuss the retrieval of our monies as we cry and borrow to the extent that our credit rating his been downgraded,� the Acting Communication Director of the opposition party GO yesterday.
According to him, the question is �were the debts legitimate? Have companies and individuals succeeded in defrauding the state?what are we doing to retrieve such monies that could solve a lot of the financial problems the government is confronting with?
Mr. Okudzeto maintained that �a balance of $ 3.5 million has been located but we cannot be satisfied because the motive is not the drill ship or the money but to divert attention from the core issues and move to equalization that NPP and NDC all paid debts.�
He said the country has witnessed, according to the chronicle of the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), a sitting President who ordered the halt of a judgement debt payment and yet it was paid, stressing �we have also witnessed in this country lawyers who�s chambers negotiated fraudulent judgement debts become AG and have defended the President in the election petition case.�
�Whist the government and it assigns are interested in is how to bring names like Akufo-Addo, Kufuor, Dapaah, Hammond and the NPP to square the lines of the canker that is seeking to spell doom for our children and future of our country,� he added.
Stories like the Subah/GRA fraud and GYEEDA, according to him, are struggling for space in the media, saying Metro TV whose reporter did the Subah story is yet to show the story on their network.
Mr. Okudzeto said Mr. Kobby Acheampong, a day after his appointment to GYEEDA, rather called for the 2012 Presidential candidate of NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to be investigated over the drill ship when millions of cedis have been blown and he is supposed to be cleaning it up.
He said the issue of judgement debts keep ragging in our country without a critical analysis of what the problem is and what the solution to the epidemic should be.
He said at a time when �our economy is in a state of shock, government cannot pay for basic things that steer the affairs of this nation. Statutory payments, even taxes that are collected at source have not found its way to their designated accounts established by law�Donors have withdrawn support for our budget �the NDC government is rather concentrating on this diversionary tactics.�
Diving into the facts of the sale of the drill ship, he said it happened that by the year 2001 when the Kufuor administration took over, the GNPC after trying do hard for years, could not find oil and had invested in almost every business ventures at the time.
Subsequently, he aid the company was crumbling in debt through grumbling of its resources and to an extent the country�s resources because �this was a state owned company.�
The particular drill ship in discussion, he revealed, was not in Ghana at the time, it was seized but in Oman, �earlier it was in the United State of America hence the court actions in the USA at the time. It must be noted that the court cases in the USA were not to litigate the debt but for seizure.�
�Finally the ship was seized in Oman. A government in its quest to save the dying GNPC took steps to put in on a road to recovery. Cabinet took over the management of the company and restructured it.
�One of the debts that was negotiated and paid was the Societe Generale debt at the time of negotiations stood at $47 million; negotiated to $ 19.5 million. The ship in question was in the custody of a court and had to be disposed of,� he further revealed.
He disclosed that valuation was done at $20 million but officials got a buyer to pay above the valued price at $42 million, saying that the debt was paid to free the hands of the company and� the monies disbursed accordingly to SG and the government and people of Ghana and all expenses paid. The balance of such monies can be traced to government accounts in the USA.�
�Here we are discussing a restructuring that put GNPC backs on the road to recovery and refocused towards its core mandate to look for oil. In 2005 Ghana found oil of which proceeds support our budget today,� Mr. Okudzeto.
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