Editorial: Mills and Mabey & Johnson

For want of a more appropriate headline, we settled on the above-stated one and commence our discourse, with a statement of opprobrium to the unfolding illogicalities about the matters arising out of the arrival and departure of the Chief Prosecutor in the Mabey & Johnson (M & J) bribery debacle.

The whole thing sounds comical, fit in our estimation for the concert halls, especially in these stressful times.

We detest, vehemently, the developing “Jack Where Are You?” gimmick we are being treated to by Mr. President and members of his team who have had a hand in managing the subject since it broke out a while ago, albeit in an amateurishly.

When we predicted, a few days before the arrival of John Hardy, the Chief Prosecutor in the Mabey and Johnson case, about how much feathers would be ruffled in the political turf when the man touches base in Ghana, little did we know at the time it would be on such a scale.

President Mills' demeanour and action in the face of the newly-opened chapter on the M & J issue, comical as it is, is also worrying to state the least.

Against the backdrop of the earlier government decision to collect the $1 million and a now howling President Mills screaming foul to Mr. Hardy's statement that the Ghanaian state had been paid the said amount, we behold an absurdity.

It is critical to remember that the company, M & J, agreed to have presented inflated contract sums of some 30% in some instances, besides the admission to bribing some public officials in the country to secure jobs.

If the same company decides to pay a reparation of $1 million to the state of Ghana, and not to the NDC as a political grouping, having been found culpable in a court of competent jurisdiction in the UK, it would sound bizarre that President Mills would regard the money an abomination whose collection would be a betrayal of former public officials from his political stable.

The deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa, stated yesterday that the British government had confirmed that government had not collected the said amount.

We are really at a loss as to what the President is about when he demands the return of Mr. John Hardy to provide proof of government's receipt of the reparation.

This, for us, is a sad reflection of our understanding of the issue at stake. Mr. Hardy's visit was an opportunity for the government to seek and collect more details in addition to those Betty Mould-Iddrisu brought from her money and time-wasting trip to the UK, and which are being held in a Castle vault anyway, away from CHRAJ and those who may need them.

We should not mix the matter at stake with whether Mills' kith and kin, one of them a party activist at the time, really collected bribe money or not.

No, that is yet to be determined, as we hope, by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) which may get somewhere in the case, the existence of motley challenges notwithstanding.

It is interesting and ironic that President Mills' decision to have Dr. George Sipa-Yankey and Alhaji Amadu Seidu bow out of his government was based on the contents of the details the Attorney-General and Justice Minister brought down from the UK on his order.

As for Alhaji Baba Kamara, Ghana's High Commissioner to Nigeria, the President did not find him culpable and so did not apply the exit option on him.

That could be determined at a later date, we hope. Could the President be acting out of embarrassment and a certain sense of guilt? Maybe so.

The best the President could do was to state that the money is not yet in, but to assert that the money would not be received sounds ridiculous and does not in any way strengthen the feeble attempts at enhancing the chances of the aforementioned former public officials.

Such a Manna from Heaven, if shared among at least distressed pro-NDC newspapers, could alter their lot as they struggle to distribute their below three hundred print-runs.

Source: Daily Guide/Ghana