The Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa constituency, Hon. P.C. Appiah Ofori, says he would be very surprised if President Mills allows the various characters in the saga involving the former Youth and Sports Minister to go scot-free without prosecuting them.
The highly acclaimed anti-corruption crusader says he would have little or no respect for the Chief Executive Officer of the State, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, if the architects in the scandal which rocked the Sports Ministry are left off the hook without being made to face the full rigours of the law. �I have a lot of respect and admiration for President Mills because I know he is a decent man, but I may revise my notes about him if he allows the people involved in the scandal to have their way,� he noted.
The Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa MP further noted �I am keeping my fingers crossed and monitoring closely, if President Mills fails to act accordingly, I would have a lot of things to tell him.�
Hon. Appiah Ofori, who made the statement in an interview with the host of the weekend political programme dubbed �Bo Ho Bio� on Hello FM, said the opportunity had presented itself for President Mills to demonstrate to Ghanaians and the whole World that he was indeed committed to fighting corruption in his administration. In the view of the NPP lone ranger, the circumstances surrounding the release and payment of various sums of monies to the Minister, the Chief Director and the Principal Accountant smack of a lot of corruption which the players involved must be made to face the full rigorous of the law. He noted that merely allowing the Minister to resign would not be enough, but instead he must be charged for financial misappropriation and causing financial loss to the state.
In sharp contrast to his colleague NPP Members in Parliament who raised eyebrow over the way the government was treating the whistle blowers, in this case, the Principal Accountant and the Chief Director of the Sports Ministry, Hon. Appiah Ofori said both Adim Odoom and Albert Ampong must not only be interdicted but must be quickly handed over to the police for the security services to prefer charges against them at a court of law.
He stated that the criminal code in the nation�s constitution clearly spells out the nature of punitive measures that should be meted out to people who misappropriate public funds and �I expect President Mills to implement it to the latter.� Making references to reports of Auditor General on the Consolidated Fund between the years of 2006 to 2008, Hon. Appiah Ofori observed that similar incidents occurred in the past administration of the NPP under former President Kufuor which resulted in the state losing various sums of money which could not be recovered pointing to a number of damning revelations of embezzlements of state funds by public officials.
The NPP MP therefore called on President Mills to spread his tentacles and cause investigations to be conducted into the Auditor General�s report on the years cited in order to identify the perpetrators and bring them to book.
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