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On February 13, 2009, Nana Akufo-Addo, former Foreign Affairs Minister and presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), was reported by the Ghanaian Times Newspaper as having returned two official vehicles to the ministry, almost three years after leaving office.

The vehicles, a Nissan Patrol four-wheel drive and a Toyota Landcruiser four-wheel drive, were described as generally in good condition, but had some defects. Ironically, members of the NPP operating under the a “pressure group” Occupy Ghana, has sued former Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng Adjei, for keeping one of the luxury vehicles the Ministry bought for a rural electrification project for months.

Occupy Ghana, through Sydney Casely-Hayford is asking the court to order Dr. Oteng-Adjei to pay $500 to the state for each of the 222 days that he kept the Lexus, after he was removed from office as Minister. This comes to a total of about GHC383,000.

The pressure group filed the suit last Thursday, March 12, 2015 at a Fast Track High court in Accra. In a media interview, Dr. Joe Oteng-Adjei, admitted keeping the state’s luxury vehicle, months after he left office.

Nana Addo’s return of the vehicles, was confirmed in a letter to the government, a copy of which was made available to the Ghanaian Times by Abdulai Amadu Abukari, acting Director of Estates and General Services Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who signed on behalf of the Chief Director.

It said: “I wish to report that the abovementioned vehicles were returned to the Ministry on 8th February, 2009.

“They are generally in good condition, except that vehicle No. GT 5621 T (Nissan Patrol 4×4) has a discharged battery and GT 1983 x (Toyota• Land Cruiser 4×4) has faulty starter brushes,” it said.

A source close to the government said, “we received a confirmation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.”

Nana Akufo-Addo, left government and launched his bid to become the flag-bearer of the NPP in August 2007.

The NPP General Secretary then, Nana Ohene Ntow, had also lived in his official bungalow for many years after he left government as a Spokesperson to stand for election and became party scribe.

He was discovered to have turned the state bungalow into a shito producing factory. It is not yet clear what happened to the water, electricity and rent after he was sacked from the government bungalow following a change of government.

The respected newspaper also reported that how “… a number of NPP Ministers and functionaries yesterday called on telephone to the Times to protest about the reported retrieval of 39 high-performance vehicles from them by the NDC government.

Kan Dapaah, former Defence Minister, Ama Busia, Member of the Council of State, Kwadwo Mpiani, former Chief of Staff, D.K. Osei, Secretary to the ex-president, and the wife of Joe Ghartey, former Attorney-General, and O. B. Amuah, former deputy Minister of Sports, all said they drove the vehicles to the Transitional Secretariat and handed them over to the team in charge of Executive Assets. They insist that the vehicles were never retrieved from them; they voluntarily returned them.

Naa Bortei-Doku, daughter of Mrs Mary Chinery-Hesse, Special Adviser to former ex-President Kufuor, also called the Ghanaian Times to say that the official car assigned to her mother never spent a night at her mum’s residence.

She said, as a routine the car pick her mother from the house each morning for work and brought her back in the evenings, after which the car was returned to the Castle. .

The Ghanaian Times published yesterday that 39 vehicles were retrieved from President J.A. Kufuor and other members of the former government, and party functionaries”.

But questions are being asked as where Ace Annan Ankomah who is a member of Occupy Ghana and a lawyer to Sydney Casely-Hayford, were when Nana Addo and other used state vehicles or lived in state bungalows for years without paying a dime to the state by way of rent.

They suggest double standard on the part of the NPP group, most who are gunning for parliamentary seat on the tickets of the NPP. But others have argued that a cogent ruling on the case could serve as a deterrent to future state official for over-staying the duty post or using the officials cars years after leaving office.