IEA Seems Prepared To Shred Their Credibility To Save NPP's Blushes

A member of the Communications Team of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Felix Ofosu Kwakye has contested the neutrality and credibility of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). According to him, the ruling party cannot accept to be part of a process being organized by an institution which has been compromised and also has a history of open bias. He was commenting on the party�s decision not to allow President John Evans Atta Mills and Vice President John Dramani Mahama to participate in the IEA�s upcoming debates and encounters with the Presidential candidates ahead of this year's elections. Speaking as a panelist on Peace FM�s �Kokrokoo Morning Show, Kwakye-Ofosu alluded to a serialized report the Ghana News Agency (GNA) sourced from the website of the IEA in August last year which slammed the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for abuse of incumbency in Elections 2008 as the then ruling party. The report made stinging indictment on the NPP and how it flagrantly abused state resources to run an opulent campaign in the last election-an election it lost to the then opposition National Democratic Congress flagbearer John Mills. �The most flagrant abuses involve the use of state vehicles, state security apparatuses, state officials, state venues and paraphernalia, and state helicopters to distribute campaign materials of its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo�Last-minute flurry of sod-cutting for projects and its commissioning activities by then President John Agyekum Kufuor was seen as inuring to the benefit of the ruling NPP�s candidate,� IEA stated in the report. The document titled: �Report on the 2008 General Elections in Ghana,� also said Nana Akufo-Addo �was awash in resources and some estimated him as out-spending his seven other presidential opponents put together by as much as 30:1 ratio�. But the IEA was quick to dissociate itself from the report, challenging its authenticity. Thus ensued a �credibility tussle� between the IEA, which denied creating or contributing to the reports; and the state-owned news agency insistence that it picked the story from the IEA website.