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National Organizer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Kofi Adams appears stumped by the New Patriotic Party (NPP's) decision to officially respond to the former claims that government spent a whooping $6.8 million on private investigators aimed at nailing appointees of the erstwhile John Mahama administration.

A clearly surprised Kofi Adams said the NDC was not expecting any response from the ‘Elephant’ party on the subject matter. 

To him, once the opposition party never accused the NPP party of any wrongdoing, their (NPP's) response to the accusation was "absurd".

“We [NDC] never accused the NPP headquarters in our press conference of anything. So we are rather expecting the government wasting our money to respond to us not the NPP party. What is the Minister for Information and his three deputies doing? Where is the Chief of Staff or the Auditor General whose name was mentioned in our release?” he questioned. 

“These are the people we want them to respond to us [NDC] not the NPP’s headquarters. If the claims are not true, government should have issued a release in respect to that not the party,” he added in an interview with NEAT FM’s morning show ‘Ghana Montie’.

NPP's Response

The NPP, at a press conference held on Wednesday, denied claims by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that government has spent some $6.8 million on private audit firms aimed at harassing former government appointees who are already co-operating with state institutions for investigations.

According to the NDC, although state agencies such as the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) are already probing some former appointees, the government paid some private firms to do the same job at a huge cost to the taxpayer.

Responding to this claim among others in a press conference, Mr Yaw Buaben Asamoa, Director of Communications of the NPP, said: “The government did not spend $6.8 million on the audits as has been deliberately and falsely put out. The UNDP only provided technical assistance to the office coordinating the audits. This is in line with section 3 (f) of the EOCO Act. The technical support from the UNDP is part of their anti-corruption support and governance project and costs less than a $100,000.00. The mention of U.S.$6.8 m is a total red herring aimed at diverting attention from the substantive findings of the forensic audit and the genuine questions that persons found culpable have to answer as part of investigative processes.

“Please note that the institutions involved are paying for the forensic audits. It would serve the public well if Mr Asiedu Nketia could be humble enough to apologise for bringing the UNDP and the government into disrepute on the basis of a wild reckless guess, or, at least, reveal his source. Otherwise, we humbly plead with him to hold his horses and rein in the reckless and misguided pronouncements. Rumour mongering cannot be a substitute for information and facts.”

But Kofi Adams told NEAT FM’s morning show sit-in host, Mc-Jerry Osei Agyeman that, “The NPP wants to politicize the issue. We are accusing government officials not any guru in NPP. This issue is not for NPP party. The NPP is not Auditor General or President Akufo Addo or any other person mentioned in our release.”

He wondered why government is not using the appropriate structures to respond to delicate issues rather than using its party approach.   

“This is not the right approach. What are the ministries responsible for government issues doing? This is not NPP, NDC issues. We won’t tow their line, this is bogus. Government should respond to us appropriately,” he said.