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President John Dramani Mahama has vowed to crack the whip on all persons who were compromised in the string of controversial judgment debts paid under suspicious circumstances. Chief among these judgment debts were those paid under the tutelage of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) amounting to a whopping GH�900 million since 2009, including the GH�51.2million paid to businessman and NDC financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome. Also, his crackdown would cause an investigation into the �94 million (Euros) paid to German construction firm Construction Pioneers (CP), over $1.3million paid to Spanish company Isofoton, the over $400million being demanded by African Automobile Limited for a shady Hyundai Galloper deal and $35million paid to Rockshell among a tall list of unsubstantiated liabilities charged on the government of Ghana. President Mahama, who two weeks ago promised to unveil his policies for the remaining unexpired four months of the Mills-Mahama administration, presented his broad policy plans to Ghanaians on Tuesday at the Accra International Conference Centre. Among his submissions was a definite plan to tackle the sketchy judgment debt deals. The President vowed to ensure that all monies paid to persons and institutions that did not deserve them were retrieved, saying he would put in place measures to rationalise the investigations into the controversial payments. �Our safeguards in this respect include not only the investigative machinery to look quickly and rigorously into any report of corruption but also the Judiciary which must have credibility in the eyes of all the citizenry and not be seen as part of the problem,� he stated. Judgment Debt Commissioner President Mahama explained the measures he would adopt to bring a closure to the spurious judgment debts saga. According to him, he would appoint a Sole Commissioner to thoroughly examine the judgment debts and negotiated settlements mystery and make recommendations to him for execution. Apparently, the new Commissioner�s terms of reference would also include sanitizing the procedures for negotiating, contracting, executing, monitoring and resolving disputes regarding business transactions involving the government of Ghana. President Mahama�s Commission of enquiry would be the second time such a probe had been constituted to dissect the mystery surrounding the alleged fraudulent settlements made by government officials. In February this year, President Mahama�s predecessor, John Evans Atta Mills, instructed the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) to investigate the circumstances under which the GH�51.2 million was paid to Mr. Woyome. The EOCO�s investigations revealed a startling string of collusions. Its findings concluded that Mr. Woyome defrauded the state of the whopping amount and that certain personalities in key positions aided him, including the Legal Director at the Ministry of Finance, Paul Asimenu and a Chief Attorney at the Attorney General�s Department, Samuel Neequaye Tetteh. Mr. Woyome himself named a couple of key members of the NDC government who allegedly played major roles to aid him in acquiring the GH�51.2million, including former Attorney General Betty Mould-Iddrissu, Minister of Finance Dr. Kwabena Duffour, Chief of Staff Henry Martey Newman and his two deputies Alex Segbefia and Valerie Sawyerr. The case is currently in court, but strangely, the deputy Attorney General, Barton-Odro contested the locus standi of the government in chasing Mr. Woyome for the money paid to him because he claimed government had a bad case when indeed the State had no contract with the NDC financier. Alex Segbefia and Valerie Sawyerr, Ebo Barton-Odro and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, deputy Minister of Information were said to be linked to some of the scandals. Segbefia, Valerie Sawyerr and others were mentioned by Woyome in his statement to the police and yet they had not been invited to explain their roles in the gargantuan Woyome payout. Currently, the CP and the other judgment debts are also being scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament and other state agencies. President Mahama said his soon-to be-appointed commissioner would dissect all these complex twists. �As President, I am absolutely committed to addressing these aberrations in our national systems of payments,� he said. On his view about a separate commissioner to tackle judgment debt, Vitus Azeem, the Executive Secretary of the anti-corruption organization, Ghana Integrity Initiative, told DAILY GUIDE, �I don�t know what type of person he would be, but it will depend on what powers you give to the person. It is not just reviewing and making recommendations, but what would be done with those recommendations, that is the most important part.� �I expect that people who have acted in a way that contributed to the judgment debt should be sanctioned because we have lost a lot of money,� said Mr. Azeem. Tall List Meanwhile, President Mahama�s presentation included a long list of other socio-economic interventions that he claimed the NDC government would tackle within four months. The tall list of programmes appeared to be more than what the government had tackled in the almost four years that the party had been in power, raising suspicion that they were only election promises. But critics thought it was rather a long shot at attaining all these plans within the stipulated timeframe. �Four months is rather too short a time for most of these things that he has said to be implemented. Some of them are just following up on what they are already doing, or what they would do if they win power in December,� stated Vitus Azeem. Samia Nkrumah, Chairman of the Convention People�s Party (CPP), Bernard Monah, General Secretary of the People�s National Convention (PNC) and Dr. Henry Lartey of GCPP, acknowledged the challenge President Mahama would face in fulfilling his plans during the relatively short time. U-Turn On Education Meanwhile, President Mahama, in a rather curious twist, has endorsed the feasibility of free basic education for school going pupils in Ghana, calling it a �right and must be free�. �I believe, as does most Ghanaians, that education is a right, and must be free. Millions of Ghanaians, especially from deprived families got the benefit of fee-free education during the first Republic and today, they are contributing meaningfully to the development of this nation,� he stated. This view was a sharp departure from the strong opposition to the idea of a free basic education as being championed by the candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The NPP flagbearer, who considered education as his top priority, had vowed on pushing his ambitious educational policy through if elected as President. The NDC had disagreed and rubbished the idea, saying it was not feasible. The NDC argued that rather than making education free, access to educational infrastructure must be the key consideration, hence its top priority policy of rebuilding �schools under trees�. However, President Mahama said, �The modalities of expressing this shared-national vision of free education must first, ensure that we improve efficiencies and grant access to those who are in the system.� �As we speak, we have a huge unfulfilled back-log of students who need to move from basic to tertiary education; and improving standards at the basic level significantly,� he stated. Cashing In On Education The cause for this sharp departure for a government that was seriously opposed to free secondary education was not immediately clear. His change of mind could probably be due to the emergence of education as the most important factor for consideration in the December general elections. Two separate bodies recently conducted surveys in the country to ascertain the most important factor that Ghanaian electorates would consider as a presidential aspirant�s biggest selling point, as the country heads for the polls in December. In all the findings, education topped the key considerations. The two separate surveys were conducted by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD). An average of more than 30 percent of respondents in the surveys mentioned education as the most important thing for them among a litany of several socio-economic interventions.