Govt didn’t spend $6.8m on forensic audit — NPP

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has stated categorically that the government did not spend $6.8 million on the forensic audits as has been deliberately and falsely put out by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

It said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) only provided technical assistance to the office that was coordinating the audit, which was in line with Section Three (F) of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) Act which allowed EOCO to seek technical co-operation from international sources.

Addressing a press conference at the NPP headquarters at Asylum Down in Accra yesterday afternoon, the Communications Director of the party, Mr Yaw Buabeng Asamoah, said the support was part of the UNDP’s anti-corruption support and governance project which as far as the NPP was concerned cost less than a $100,000.

He said the institutions involved were paying for the forensic audit.

He, therefore, urged the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, to apologise for bringing the UNDP and the government into disrepute on the basis of a wild reckless guess or reveal the source of his information.

Past appointees

Flanked by other Deputy Communications Directors, including Madam Joyce Zampare, and the National Organiser of the party, Mr Sammy Awuku, Mr Buabeng Asamoah also expressed the hope that the blanket call by Mr Asiedu Nketiah to appointees of the previous government not to cooperate with investigations would not be followed literally by the appointees because a pre-emptive attempt to escape accountability under a smoke screen of witch-hunting would not convince the Ghanaian public.

He said, “The NPP was compelled to correct the deliberate falsehoods put out by Asiedu Nketiah who seemed to be on a mission to make noise to boost his flagging campaign for re-election because no logical explanation comes easily to mind for Mr Asiedu Nketiah’s antics as advertised in a full-blown press conference and on other media.”

“We want to say that most of what Mr Asiedu Nketiah delivered were deliberate lies and speculative half-truths concocted in the pot of his federal imagination which he could easily have identified from relevant sources,” he stressed.

Helicopter

Setting the records straight, the NPP communications director explained that the Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, never used a helicopter from the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC) as was alleged by Mr Asiedu Nketiah, but rather a Ghana Airforce helicopter with identity mark GHF 696 which was totally different in model and make from the Z 9EH helicopters that the GNGC was purported to have purchased, and the acquisition of which was part of the ongoing forensic audit process in that government agency.

Mr Buabeng Asamoah further expressed surprise at why the NDC was rushing to discredit investigations yet to feed into potential prosecutions and asked if the NDC sought to pre-empt the outcome of the forensic audits.