Alhaji Moctar Bamba: Charge Me Now!

Former Deputy Minister of Presidential Affairs and ex-Member of Parliament (MP) for Wenchi, Alhaji Moctar Bamba, has challenged anyone who accuses him of any form of financial misappropriation during his term as a Deputy Minister in the former administration, to take him to court. �Those allegations are just a sham and diversionary tactics. Anyone who feels I am guilty of any kind of financial malfeasance should send me to court,� he charged. Answering a question about his dark days in the previous administration, and the impact it may have on his bid for the National Organizer position of the party, during an interview with The Chronicle in Kumasi recently, Alhaji Bamba stated that he had a clean and untainted political record, and as far as he was concerned, no concrete evidence of financial fraud was found against him during his tenure as a Minister at the presidency. The former MP, who is launching a second time bid for the position, after losing narrowly to the incumbent, Lord Commey, said he was never involved in any corrupt practice, and said the media reports at that time, were an attempt to ruin his political career. �I am not afraid of my past, because I know the BNI and the court cleared me of any form of fraud, so anyone who feels that he had got a beef with me, can go to the law court,� he challenged. Alhaji Bamba resigned from his post as the former Deputy Minister of Presidential President Affairs under ex-President Kufuor�s administration, after he was alleged to have condoned with a party member to forge the signatures of ministers of state on letterheads originating from the office of the then President Kufuor. The Bureau of National Investigation (BNI), however, cleared the former minister of any form of falsification after thorough investigations. Alhaji Bamba, however, believes the scandal was his least worry, and that nothing was going to debar him from occupying the New Patriotic Party (NPP) National Organiser position. According to him, the battle for the 2012 elections was going to be a different ball game, and would require that the party elects someone with the determination and zeal to confront the difficulties that would come along. He said the party needs someone who has the strong will to counter the cruelty and barbarism of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and not an armchair organizer, who only sits in the office and claims to be co-ordinating things. �You all know that we are not in power, and being in opposition means that we need to fight incumbency with the little resources and opportunity available to us. There is no time for laxity and experimentation,� he noted. Analyzing the factors that led to the downfall of the NPP, the former MP said the party lost the elections because it failed to connect well with the various Zongo communities across the country. Against this backdrop, Alhaji Bamba said the party needs someone who can easily blend with the Northern and Zongo caucuses, to be able to share and co-ordinate well with them, in order to win their trust and confidence. �We have over 365 Zongo communities across the country, and you can imagine the number of votes we lost, simply because we could not bond well with them.� He noted that being multi-lingual, and with a Northern background, he would be the perfect answer to the gap that exists between the party and the Zongo communities. Alhaji Bamba also claims he has had a lot of political experience working with great politicians such as the late Adu Boahen and Ex-President Kufuor, which he hopes to apply to the benefit of the party, when elected as National Organiser.