Gift Saga: Prez Mahama Responds To Allegations...

President John Dramani Mahama has dared anyone with evidence of corruption against him to invoke the Constitution of the Republic to take him on.

Dismissing allegations of corruption against him in apparent reference to a vehicle gift from a Burkinabe contractor, the President said, "If you believe I have involved myself in corruption, you have the constitutional means to do whatever you want to do."

Since Joy FM came out with the vehicle gift story, a number of people, mostly political opponents of the President, have accused him of conflict of interest and bribery.

Baseless accusation

But speaking at a durbar of the chiefs and people of Ashaiman to welcome him to Ashaiman yesterday as part of his “Accounting to the People” tour of the Greater Accra Region, the President made a veiled reference to the issue and described the accusations against him as baseless 

"When you make baseless rumours and accusations, it won’t win you the Presidency. The people of Ghana are discerning and I believe that come November 7, they will make their decision," he said.

He was confident that he would clinch victory in the election, no matter the accusations made against him.

"I am convinced that by the grace of the Almighty God the people have seen the work we have done, and given the opportunity we shall do even more than that," he said.

Insults

President Mahama said he would not be distracted by insults from his opponents.

He said he had work to do, which he was executing satisfactorily, and told his opponents that their insults would not win them power.

He said he was not brought up to insult people. 

"I will not insult my political opponents, " he said.

The President stated that it was God who made Presidents and added, "If God says you'll not be President, you'll never be President."

No message

He said it was clear that his opponents did not have any meaningful message in the election season and that was why when he was showing the people what he had done as President and telling them what he would do in his next term, his opponents had only resorted to lies and insults on his person.

Building on foundation

The President said the Constitution gave the President the opportunity to "lay the foundation and build the superstructure".

He said in the same way that two former Presidents — Rawlings and Kufuor — did two terms in office and Mills, but for his unfortunate death, would also have done two terms, so did he too deserve to go two terms.

"I have done one term. In my first term in office, I was tied down in court for one year; we were faced with the power crisis that I have been dealing with and doing my best to tackle. 

“When I said in Parliament and promised the good people of Ghana that I would fix it, I did it,” he stated.

“Even though we are not completely out of the woods, the power situation is much better than in the past," he said.

Unnecessary demonstration

Making reference to a demonstration by some people of Teshie, Nungua and La against high electricity tariffs on Tuesday, the President described it as unfortunate, especially when he had explained that the defects in the billing system would be corrected from July 1.

He said either the demonstrators did not understand the issues or they demonstrated for political reasons.