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The Vice President, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur has hit out at allegations levelled against his educational background by an NPP group, Young Patriot describing it as �only a distraction� to the greater purpose of his political career. Speaking in an exclusive interview on the Citi Breakfast Show, the former Bank of Ghana Governor intimated that the protracted debate over his certificates from the University of Ghana, were needless because they were currently �lying in the academic registry� of the University of Ghana. In his opinion, there was no point engaging his detractors because he was more concerned with prosecuting the campaign agenda of the ruling NDC, an activity he was greatly enjoying. The debate over the educational qualifications of the presidential candidates of the ruling NDC and opposition NPP has intensified with each group critiquing the Curriculum Vitae of their opponents. The NDC�s Research for Advocacy Platform at a press conference on Monday, announced their findings from e-mail correspondence with one Jeremy Drew; Manager of the Degree Conferrals office in Oxford concerning Nana Addo�s enrolment into the school. Convener of the group, Felix Kwakye-Ofosu accused Nana Addo of concealing information of his enrolment into Oxford University from the public, stating that the NPP flagbearer could therefore not be trusted to fight corruption. The Young Patriots of the NPP in response, informed media men at a press conference that the Vice President forged a 1980 MSc. Economics Degree from Legon. They thus charged the Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur with dishonesty saying his name was neither in the year group nor was the University aware of his �self-acclaimed� graduation. The Vice President, in response however said �my first thesis was on health economics, on the economic costs of malaria. My supervisor, Richard Brooks, left Ghana just around the time I was finishing, and there was nobody who was willing or able to supervise my thesis. Dr. Buamad then offered to supervise another thesis, which I did. Dr Buamad then left for the University of Bayero in Nigeria. Every time I finished a chapter I will post it to him and then he will post it back... so it took some time.� �I finished the thesis in 1979 and then I was offered a job as a lecturer in the Department when the degree was awarded. The degree was awarded, I suspect or I believe, early in 1980 so anybody who is looking at the 1980 pass list in June will not see my name there because I would have been notified of the degree much earlier in January of 1980.� He continued: �The problem that I have is that this was not a foreign university degree. It was a University of Ghana degree which was being offered and appointed in the University of Ghana. The Legon professors knew the work that I had done so there was no problem at all about a fake degree or whatever it is they are bringing in.� The Vice President noted, �If somebody is going to the end of an academic year and looking at the pass list and saying that your name is not there, he is looking at the wrong list. He should go to the University and they will tell him that some of these postgraduate degrees were awarded before the final exam degrees were awarded. On the issuance of a certificate for his academic work, Vice President Amissah-Arthur noted, �because I knew I had done good work and it was the same university I didn�t even collect it. That certificate must be lying in the academic registry. Now that you people ask I am going to try to recover it�. He bemoaned the activities of some persons who had summarised his Curriculum Vitae and posted on the internet upon which "all these distractions" were based.