Ex-DCE challenges government to come clean

Goaso (B/A), Feb 20, GNA - Mr Mohammed Kwaku Doku, a District Chief Executive for Asunafo in Brong Ahafo in the erstwhile National Democratic Congress administration, has challenged the government to come clean on the claim of pursuing the rule of law.  
     He said in a statement after a meeting of NDC executives in Asunafo North constituency at the weekend that the government "only respects the law and decisions of the courts whenever they favour it".
     Mr. Doku, the immediate past Brong Ahafo Regional secretary of the NDC, said the government had deliberately turned a blind eye to "prosecutable reports" made against government officials and NPP functionaries.
     "The government is only quick to call state investigative bodies and prosecutors to act when an allegation is made against Ghanaians who are not of NPP coloration", he alleged.     
     The former DCE said the government had hidden under the cloak of the law of wilfully causing financial loss to the state to prosecute NDC functionaries.     
      "Ministers and officials who did not heed to calls and advice from parliament and the World Bank and pursued the infamous IFC and CNTI loans should have been charged with wilfully causing financial loss to the state", Mr. Doku said.Mr. Doku said: "Ghanaians are still waiting to know when the former Minister of Lands and Forestry who the Auditor General cited for causing financial loss to the state for importing grafted mango seedlings worth more than three billion cedis to northern Ghana during the dry season".
     He also asked if the Minister of Food and Agriculture could be charged with wilfully causing financial loss to the state "for deliberately neglecting the Aveyime Rice Project to rot, for which some NDC ministers had served prison sentences".
     The former DCE challenged the government to prosecute those who destroyed electoral materials in Pru and Asunafo districts in Brong Ahafo during the 2004 general election, "if it truly respects the rule of law".
      Mr. Doku stated that information showed that the police arrested the culprits but were released upon instructions from government officials.          
      He said he took the government to court to claim his salaries, entitlements and ex-gratia as DCE but two years after the court had ruled against the government it had blatantly refused to comply with the court's orders. "The government's reaction would have been very swift and quick if the court had ruled otherwise. Is this the rule of law that the NPP government preaches?" the former DCE asked.
20 Feb 07