<<Print>>The 1st Vice-Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Freddie Blay, has written to the police despite earlier refusal to cooperate. Lawyers of Mr. Blay in a 3-page letter copied the police explained his role in the operation of a party account at Ecobank. The operation of the account is a subject of criminal investigation by the Criminal Department of the Ghana Police Service.
This follows a complaint by one Baah Achamfour, believed to be a hireling of the Chairman and General Secretary of the NPP, Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyepong respectively. The complainant accused Mr. Blay of diverting party money into a new account opened on the blind side of the NPP Chairman and General Secretary.
Mr. Blay’s lawyers in the letter stated that Ecobank Account has been in existence for 12-years now, contrary to Baah Achamfour’s claims.
They explained that Messrs Afoko and Agyepong “refused to sign the Ecobank mandate card when they realized that our client was a signatory to that account. They insisted on being signatories to the exclusion of our client.”
Contrary to practice and constitutional provisions, “the Chairman and General Secretary issued instructions to some banks to the effect that, they were to be the sole signatories to some accounts. Our client was not, and is still not, aggrieved by the decision of the Chairman and General-Secretary to exclude him from being a signatory to some of the accounts.”
This was in spite of the fact that by practice, “The signatories to most NPP accounts had always been four persons – the Chairman, 1st Vice-Chairman, General-Secretary and Treasurer,” the letter, addressed to a sub-committee investigating the allegations, observed.
It said even though Article 9(g) of the NPP Constitution vests the Treasurer with being “responsible for handling the funds of the Party” and seeing to “their proper disbursement in accordance with applicable laws,” upon assuming office, Messrs Afoko and Agyepong wrote letters to banks asking that the Treasurer should not be issued with bank statements.
Freddie Blay insisted there was no wrongdoing on his part because no money was taken out of the Ecobank account for any personal purpose or any purpose not approved by the Steering Committee of the party.
The Editor-In-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Saturday said the police’s investigation would come to naught because there was no merit in the claims of the complainant.
He said if the police conducted preliminary inquiry into background of the complainant, they would have realized he lacked credibility.
He was discussing the NPP’s latest public disagreement on Joy FM and MultiTV’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Saturday.