<<Print>>

The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram in the Greater Accra region, Sam Nartey George says the 27 charges levelled against former Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) Chief Executive Officer, Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni is part of a grand scheme to divert attention from the high level of corruption that has bedeviled the ruling government.

Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni has been sued at the Accra High Court for allegedly for causing financial loss to the state.

The State has leveled a total of 27 charges against Dr. Opuni along with Businessman cum Chief Executive Officer of Zeera Group of Companies, Alhaji Seidu Agongo and Agricult Ghana Ltd.

A copy of the writ states that the three have been charged with wilfully causing financial loss to the State, defrauding by false pretense, contravention of the Public Procurement Act, corruption of public officer, money laundering among other various offences.

Speaking in a radio interview on Accra-based Class FM Wednesday, Mr Nartey said: “this trial is a sad day for our democracy. This government has shown that whenever it is exposed and stripped naked and revealed to the Ghanaian public for what it is truly made up of, a bunch of corrupt nepotistic individuals who are reaping this country dry, all they engage in is diversionary tactics...this was much ado about nothing...this is a dance of no consequence on the part of the NPP".

“You remember that when he [BOST MD] was accused previously, my colleague in Parliament honourable Kennedy Agyapong dared anybody in the NPP including the President to try and touch him, and all hell will break loose in the NPP. A few days later the President cleared him of all wrong-doing. Again he has been accused and this case of Dr Opuni and Seidu Agongo has been brought up...look, the NPP is failing as a government, this is a government the current CEO of COCOBOD made accusations against Dr Opuni that he had awarded ghost cocoa roads, cocoa roads that did not exist but when the Ranking Member on the Roads Committee challenged him on the floor of Parliament, he has been unable in six months to provide us with one road that supports his assertion."

According to the Ningo Pampram MP if anybody has to stand trial in this country "it is the current CEO of COCOBOD and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for willfully causing financial loss to the state…this government 15 months down the line have demobilised all contractors and asked them to leave because you think they are phantom projects and you think that you want to witch-hunt some people. The rains have come already and we are about to enter the second season of rain under this administration and the prima sealing and base structure on most of those roads have been washed off and eventually when this government asks those contractors to go back to site, you think that the cost of the roads are going to be the same? There is going to be variations in some instances as high as 25 per cent. Who has willfully occasioned that loss to the Ghanaian taxpayer, is it not this current CEO and the President?"