Betty Mould Iddrisu Condemned

Ex-deputy Attorney General in the erstwhile New Patriotic Party government, Kwesi Prempeh, has called government�s bluff over threats of prosecutions of ex-officials. Betty Mould Iddrissu, Minister of Justice and Attorney General in a press briefing on Tuesday said government has uncovered 46 cases of financial malfeasance and corrupt practices by the previous administration. �In implementing the transitional report, there were some 46 irregular activities that we ascertained within the transition report.� According to her, there were �suspicious and unusual releases of payments from government�s main account� between December 24, 2008 to 6th January 2009, to pay contractors. She accused the previous government of failing to recover over GH� 1 billion in loans granted to government institutions, Ministries Departments and Agencies and said the SFO has been charged to investigate if losses had been incurred and to prosecute all defaulters. Betty Mould said lots of the cases have been forwarded to the Serious Fraud Office, the Criminal Investigative Department and the Bureau of National Investigations, but hinted prosecutions of those cases would soon begin. �One docket is about to be ready and the police is about to hand it over to me and that will be prosecuted when I also give it to the director of public prosecution.� But the ex-deputy Attorney General is unfazed by her threats, and rather admonished the minister to be �professional� in her dealings. He told Joy news the threats does not frighten any body. He is amused the attorney General will be trumpeting of dockets being ready for prosecutions when nobody in the previous administration, as far as he knows has been charged with any crime. According to him, caution and charge statements have not been taken by the police from any of his colleagues yet the AG is ready to prosecute. Asked if there are no skeletons in the cupboards of the ex-officials, the deputy attorney general said �nobody can pretend that for eight years everybody who served in Kufuor�s government did not do anything which calls for him to answer. It is a government ran by human beings. It is the NDC which believed that everybody who served in the PNDC/NDC government in the 19 years were angels and nobody did anything wrong.� He chided. He said whilst past government officials are amenable to investigations and prosecutions,due process must be seen to prevail.