I Don't Own Any Fuel Station Or Hotel - John Jinapor

Deputy Power Minister is dismissing as irresponsible politicking, the opposition NPP’s claim that government officials have amassed questionable wealth which should be investigated.

He says he does not own any fuel station or hotel and neither is he aware of any of his colleagues having such properties as claimed by the NPP yesterday.

In what the NPP has described as a ‘true’ State of the Nation Address, the Minority leader Osei-Kyei Mensah Bonsu led the charge at a press conference last Monday.

The New Patriotic Party is daring President Mahama to take his corruption fight seriously by investigating what they believe is a property acquisition spree of members in his government.

“Let the President cast his eye on his own household, his appointees, including DCEs, his Ministers and Deputy Ministers, his party leadership.  Let the President flash back and remember where they have all come from, just six years ago and put his hand on his chest and tell the nation.

“That the several mansions, the luxurious vehicles, the filling stations, the hotels, the hostels, other very material acquisitions both within and without Ghana that they have acquired in six years are not as a result of corrupt practices and the nation will follow him in his self-declared 'war against malfeasance'.” The Minority said it was willing to back its allegations with evidence if the president shows interest.

It is this terms and conditions that John Jinapor finds irresponsible.

“It is very easy to come out and peddle falsehood….if we engage in speculative accusations that is when people think that we are corrupt…..let’s fight corruption but let’s do it responsibly” he said on Joy FM Tuesday.

Discounting the perception that politicians are corrupt, he said he knows former ministers who are now living in penury.

“I know lots of former ministers who today are very very poor”, Jinapor maintained.

According to the deputy minister, the motivation for making claims “without any shred of evidence” was because the NPP are fixated on winning political power. Deputy Minority leader Dominic Ntiwul rejects this view. He says the Minority will not “waste” its time and energy to give details only for an unwilling president to fall short of pursuing the case.

Even if it takes an NPP government in power to prosecute persons believed to be corrupt, the party is prepared to wait because criminal conduct does not have an expiry date, he suggested.

Nonetheless, the Bimbilla MP said statements from the defeated National Chairman of the NDC Kwabena Adjei is an important pointer to corruption in government.

He quoted Kwabena Adjei as saying in the run-up to the NDC Congress last year that he had never before witnessed the sheer amounts of money being shared to buy votes.