Angry Rawlings blasts "disrespectful" Hannah Tetteh
Ex-President Jerry Rawlings has criticised the Foreign Affairs Minister, Hannah Tetteh, describing her as "disrespectful".
Advertisement
Mr Rawlings claimed that Mrs Tetteh walked out of a three-day conference of World Mayors in Accra Monday, after she was told that the Vice-President, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, would be replacing her as the person to deliver a speech on behalf of President John Mahama.
The former President narrated the incident to the World Mayors on Wednesday when he was given the opportunity to address the Conference.
Mr Rawlings said: “I was told that the President was not coming to the start of the Conference. Instead he had delegated the Foreign Minister to come and represent him. So I said, he can’t do that. We have the Vice President here. Protocol is such that if [President Mahama] cannot do it he should ask his vice president to come and open the conference, not his foreign minister. I tried to call the President and he called back and I told him that we have a Vice-President on the ground and he cannot send his foreign minister [to represent him]. He probably wasn’t told that the Vice President was [here], and he said sorry.
“The President sends his Vice-President to order the thing to start and we have to wait for him. She doesn’t even have the patience to wait and sit and join the meeting. She packs up and go because she can’t open it.
According to reports, when Mrs Tetteh arrived at the conference venue, she was told by Mr Vanderpuye that the Vice-President was on his way and that she would be required to give her speech to him to read on the President's behalf.
Mrs Tetteh reportedly told Mr Vanderpuye to get conference underway to enable her deliver the President's speech, but the later refused.
{mp3}rawlings_blast_hannah{/mp3}
According to Mr Rawlings, the development did not sit well with Mrs Tetteh, prompting her to walk out of the event.
Other Trending Stories
Mr Rawlings noted that whereas President Mahama was a humble man, some characters around him were “the problem”.
He went on to stress the need for public officials to have "humility".
“Humility is very important when you hold office. It’s not everything that the President does agree with or that I like. But you cannot take away from him, his humble way of doing things, his likable nature. I’m afraid some of the characters around him have a problem,” President Rawlings said. This sort of disrespect is not acceptable,” he said.
In a statement released Wednesday, however, Mrs Tetteh denied being disrespectful.
The Foreign Minister said she left the conference early because she had a cabinet meeting to attend.
The three-day 4th World Summit of Mayors and leaders of African Descent conference was attended by over 3,000 delegates made up of Mayors, city authorities and leaders from Africa and Africans in the Diaspora to forge alliance and partnership to promote the development of Africa and people in the diaspora.
UPDATE: How is that disrespectful? - Hannah Tetteh replies Rawlings