It is a spectacle of breath-taking audacity. The Mahama government, through its Attorney General, Dominic Ayine, MP, the public face of its high-profile anti-corruption drive, has the temerity to accuse the previous NPP administration of financial malfeasance in the District Roads Improvement Programme (DRIP).
This is the same government that now benefits from the very equipment procured under DRIP to fix roads across the country, saving the state hundreds of millions in both cedis and dollars.
This moral posturing shatters against the rocks of hard facts. The Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) committee, the engine of this administration’s “propaganda,” has submitted a staggering 2,400 potential corruption cases for investigations, which they have amplified as epitomising the high-octane level of corruption under President Akufo-Addo.
There was corruption under Akufo-Addo. Some of the details would shock the former President himself. But, corruption is as old as Adam & Eve, but the NDC in opposition is today a victim of its own high-voltage lies over the level of it under the previous government. Yet, from this vast field of alleged malfeasance captured by ORAL, the AG this week focused on about four or so, including a phantom $2 million “clerical error” in the DRIP contract, a project whose value is undeniable.
But the most damning revelation is on price. The AG screamed about “over-invoicing” with mark-ups of 100-300%. JAPP’s response exposes this as the height of hypocrisy. They revealed that the previous NDC government, under President John Dramani Mahama, procured a paltry 60 similar equipment for a staggering €27.8 million (over $32 million).
Let that sink in. The NDC paid over $32 million for just 60 units, while the NPP government paid $178 million for 2,420 units, a far superior deal that JAPP calculates saved the taxpayer over $1.1 billion compared to the NDC’s own pricing model.
It is this level of truth versus lies that has seen Ghanaians questioning the very foundation of this ORAL propaganda machine, which appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own lies. In a stunning television moment, the Deputy Attorney General publicly admitted that the ORAL committee’s sensational claim of $21.9 billion being stolen (a figure breathlessly reported by media houses like the BBC) was completely exaggerated and baseless.
This admission was immediately followed by an even more damning confession from a member of the ORAL committee, Daniel Domelevo, who revealed that a lot of the information they received was pure “garbage.”
He stated that the committee did no investigations but simply added up numbers from information received, mostly from anonymous emails.
This is the rotten core of the NDC’s corruption narrative. The multi-billion-dollar figures that were paraded to poison the public mind and win an election were fabricated from unvetted, anonymous “garbage.”
If the cornerstone $21.9 billion claim is a fraud, built on a foundation of emails and hearsay, what credibility does their $2 million claim against DRIP possibly have? It is clearly a politically motivated witch-hunt, following the same sloppy and malicious playbook.
In their detailed rejoinder, J.A. Plant Pool (JAPP) laid bare the stunning hypocrisy. The company, comparing the two deals, argue rightly that the contract sum for the 2,420 DRIP equipment of $178 million was “very reasonably priced.”
Let us allow the numbers speak for themselves:
* NDC Government Procurement: 60 units for over $32 million.
* NPP Government (DRIP) Procurement: 2,420 units for $178 million.
So, the party that presided over a contract to buy 60 machines for $32 million is now accusing others of overpaying for 2,420 machines that they themselves are happily using today to actively fix Ghana’s roads to their credit? The sheer audacity is breathtaking.
This means the NDC government paid a unit cost of over $533,000 for each piece of equipment, while the NPP government secured them for under $73,600 per unit, a far superior deal that saved the taxpayer over $1.1 billion.
This NDC contract, it must be recalled, was part of a pattern of sole-sourced, inflated agreements for which the Mahama administration was widely criticised.
The NDC, now posing as the champion of fiscal probity, once presided over a deal so grotesquely inflated it makes the DRIP contract look like a fire sale. It is therefore rich, to say the least, for the NDC’s Attorney General to be chasing a phantom $2 million while his party’s own record involves a procurement of such questionable value.
This selective outrage is the engine of the “ORAL propaganda” machine. Slowly but surely, the Mahama government and all their ORAL propaganda and all the lies of corruption which brought them into office will be exposed and the Ghanaian people will see them once again for what they are.
I challenge our journalists to look into that previous NDC procurement. And since crime has no expiry date, the AG should also spread his investigative wings there and brief us in his next accountability session. The Ghanaian people deserve the full picture.
Dr Kofi Omintinming Apesemaka
Source; asaaseradio.com
