<<Print>>

Beleaguered General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwabena Agyepong has broken silence over the series of accusations of embezzlement leveled against him and the party’s National Chairman, Paul Afoko.

According to him, news making rounds that he [Agyepong] and Paul Afoko have squandered the party’s money which has necessitated the move by the Treasurer, Abankwa Yeboah and the First Vice Chairman, Freddie Blay to reactivate the party’s dormant Ecobank account is not true.

In an interview with Kwame Nkrumah Tikese, host of Okay Fm’s Ade Akye Abia Morning, Kwabena Agyei Agyapong said he had tried to restrain himself from going public since he reckoned it bothered on internal party issues.

To him, since the First Vice Chair, Mr. Freddy Blay, and the Treasurer, Mr. Abankwa Yeboah, chose to go to the “court of public opinion” with the issues and painted him [Agyapong] and the chairman [Afoko] as “bad people”, an allegation he said was not true, he had no choice but to also respond publicly.

Agyepong insisted since other party members, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Joe Osei Owusu, Dominic Nitiwul, Ursula Owusu Akuful, Gabby Asare Otchere Darko and Victor Newman all chose to go public, he felt the matter could no longer be handled as an internal party issue since it was already in the court of public opinion.

“I am breaking my silence on the matter so that the public would hear the other side. It is with a very deep heart that I have to answer this way...it is not in my interest to discuss this in public and my comment is in response to what other party executives have already discussed in public; I think it is only fair to set the record straight”, he averred.

“I want everybody to understand that Freddie Blay and Abankwa Yeboah’s accusation that I have squandered party’s money is not true; party’s cheque books are with the treasurer and not with me. I have never seen the party’s cheque books before; whenever he brings something for my approval, he comes with a single cheque leaflet for me to sign and the Finance Committee has advised him against that but he still does it. So how can I have access to squander party’s money?, he quizzed.

On the allegation that he [Agyepong] reported the issue to the Police CID for further investigations into a "secret" party account, Mr. Agyapong said there was everything wrong with the decision of the Treasurer and the First Vice Chair to re-activate an account of the party at Ecobank without his (Agyepong) and party Chairman's knowledge.

He however said it was rather the Treasurer who first confessed on August 10, 2015 at a special meeting of the Finance Committee that the said account had been reactivated.