Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni: "AFAG Is Full Of Half-Baked Lawyers"

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni has taken a swipe at one of his sworn critics, the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), calling it �a single purpose NGO formed specifically on Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni.� The former Kumbungu MP, says the pressure group, founded sometime last year by a group of young Ghanaians, mainly sympathizers of the opposition is made up �of half-baked lawyers who do not know their responsibility as lawyers.� Alhaji Mumuni was speaking to Citi FM�s Moro Awudu on the Citi Breakfast Show. In the early days of the Mills administration in 2009, AFAG waged a hefty campaign against the appointment of Alhaji Mumuni as the Foreign Affairs Minister. The opposition pressure group contended that the former vice Presidential candidate to Professor Mills in the 2004 elections was unqualified to be a minister because there were serious audit findings that implicated him for mismanaging funds while he served as the Minister for Employment and Social Welfare in the erstwhile Rawlings administration. According to AFAG, Hon Mumuni was found to have misapplied monies released by the Ministry of Finance for the use of the National Vocational and Training Institute (NVTI), after a forensic audit was conducted into the operations and activities of the institute and the Ministry of Employment and social welfare, where he served as Minister. The audit, which was conducted by Messrs. Baffuor Awuah and Associates between the periods of January 1997 to December 2002, at the instance of the Auditor-General of the Republic, concluded that "the use of the NVTI as a conduit for siphoning an amount of over �19.6 billion (old cedis) of government funds to known and unknown persons, through huge and fraudulent payments to companies and enterprises as well as a number of individuals, is tantamount to 'money laundering' in some cases." The group thus petitioned parliament to reject the nomination of Alhaji Mumuni but parliament did not heed to the request. AFAG then filed another petition with the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) but it was also thrown out. This notwithstanding, the group has continued its Advocacy to have Hon. Mumuni removed from office as Ghana�s Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Foreign Affairs Minister has maintained that he is innocent and has challenged the Pressure group and all other stakeholders in the matter to provide evidence to buttress their claims. ��If anybody can show to me anywhere that I, Mohammed Mumuni have stolen even one Pesewa of the Government�s money, I will not only resign that day as Foreign Minister, but I will be prepared to surrender myself for prosecution in any court of law.� He said the failure of the former government and his detractors to provide evidence to bolster their allegations despite his incessant demands for evidence shows their concession that he (Alhaji Mumuni) is clean. �Today the same people who were hounding and bashing Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni are embarrassed. They are embarrassed because they know that there is absolutely nothing untoward against me because I did nothing wrong. I discharged my office with utmost integrity and with honesty. None of them can measure to those standards and yet they had the effrontery to throw stones and to call me names.� He said Hon Mumuni believes he�s been treated unfairly in the matter. �I have been treated most unfairly, for nothing that I have done. I have done nothing wrong apart from serve my people with honesty and yet I was made to look like a criminal. But for the fact that my President had faith in me, (because he knew that my character is one of real excellence) my President would have been pushed to disown me but he stood by me. Indeed the President has been vindicated and I am happy that the President has been vindicated.� For AFAG, the Foreign Affairs Minister describes it as a group of young men who don�t even understand the ethics of the law profession. �AFAG, who are they? These are young professionals, half baked lawyers who don�t even understand their responsibility as lawyers; the ethics of the profession, they don�t even understand and now they dare to challenge and call me names. People that I can teach; I can teach law. Apart from my educational qualification which they cannot match anyway, I have practiced law for 18 years.� He said. Meanwhile, AFAG in a swift response has expressed disappointment in Alhaji Mumuni for describing some of its members as half baked lawyers. Speaking to Citi News, a member of the pressure group, Abeiku Dickson, himself a lawyer said: �I am shocked to hear this come from a senior lawyer and an honourable Minister of this country�It is not AFAG that is calling him a corrupt person; it is the Auditor General that did an investigation that concluded that he had defrauded this country and that report is still alive and before parliament today. So it is disappointing for him to come talking like this today.� The group served notice to Alhaji Mumuni that the battle is not over and that sooner than later, it will meet the honourable Minister in court. Mr. Dickson explained that it has taken AFAG several months to take the matter to court because the group had to tackle other issues of national interest and also reorganize the internal structure of the organization.