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Former President Jerry John Rawlings has responded to statement by the University of Education, Winneba [UEW] that claims the he has “become the latest advocate of an unworthy cause that is laden with mischief and fraud.”

This follows a call by Mr Rawlings for Reverend Professor Afful-Broni to be made to step aside as Vice-Chancellor of the University to allow some unspecified investigations – he made this suggestion when he addressed a durbar to climax the 38th anniversary of the 31st December revolution.

But, the school in a communiqué noted that Prof. Afful-Broni is not the subject of any investigation after Mr. Rawlings said he was indicted for financial mismanagement in an Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) probe.

“The University, again, wishes to state clearly to the general public and, in particular, ex-President Jerry John Rawlings that, the Vice-Chancellor, Rev. Fr. Anthony Afful-Broni is not under any form of investigation; no prima facie case of wrongdoing or misconduct has been established against him; and, no disciplinary action has been initiated against him by the Governing Council to warrant his stepping aside.” Portion of UEW statement read

Rawlings Reply

The former military leader in a ‘forced’ responds to UEW claims said “We would have naturally resisted the temptation to respond to this statement, since many discerning members of the public, who have followed the UEW issue, are aware of the manipulation of facts and the resultant injustices meted out to some staff of the University for no justifiable reasons.”

Adding that, “We feel obliged to do so, particularly because of some members of the public who may be new to the UEW issues. We therefore proceed to respond to the aforementioned misrepresentations, inaccuracies and outright lies in the press statement”

Read below full detailed Statement

OFFICE OF H.E JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS’ RESPONSE TO A PRESS STATEMENT BY THE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA ON THE FORMER PRESIDENT’S COMMENTS AT THE 31ST DECEMBER ANNIVERSARY DURBAR IN WINNEBA

 The office of H.E. Jerry John Rawlings has taken note of the above Press Statement issued by the Management of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), purporting to respond to comments made by His Excellency Flt. Lt. J. J. Rawlings, Former President of Ghana, on the happenings in UEW. The office was of the belief that the Press Statement would provide the office of the Former President, relevant stakeholders, and the reading public with new information on the happenings at UEW. Rather, we have been inundated with a lengthy monologue on the same old misrepresentations of facts and outright lies that have consistently been churned out by the University, since the inception of the impasse.

We would have naturally resisted the temptation to respond to this statement, since many discerning members of the public, who have followed the UEW issue, are aware of the manipulation of facts and the resultant injustices meted out to some staff of the University for no justifiable reasons. However, we feel obliged to do so, particularly because of some members of the public who may be new to the UEW issues. We therefore proceed to respond to the aforementioned misrepresentations, inaccuracies and outright lies in the press statement as follows:

It is absolutely not true that the Supreme Court, in a purported ruling, affirmed the overriding powers of the Governing Council to make decisions under their enabling Act. No such ruling exists, and we challenge the University to publish the said ruling in its entirety for the public to read for itself. The Supreme Court ruling rather quashed an earlier decision by the High Court in favour of the dismissed staff and against the University. If the University had the good intention of educating the public and the former President as alluded to in their statement, why the pseudo style of covering up the earlier rulings of both the Appeals and Supreme Courts which sided with the dismissed staff?

It is absolutely untrue that the dismissal of former Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mawutor Avoke, Dr. Theophilus Ackorlie, Ing. Daniel Tetteh, Mr. Frank Boateng, and Ms. Mary Dzimey had nothing to do with any work or report of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) or any other state agency. In actual fact, in an earlier Press Release issued by the University on 7th November, 2017 and signed by the then Chairman of the Governing Council, Prof Emmanuel Nicholas Abakah, the University made it succinctly clear that the reason for asking the said officers to step aside, which eventually led to their dismissal, related to the work of EOCO. Specifically, the second sentence in the first paragraph of that statement states: “We wish to put on record that the recent decision of the Governing Council to request six (6) of our officers to step aside was purely in respect of the on-going investigations by EOCO, BNI and the Governing Council”.
 
Secondly, the allegations that were investigated by the Council were the very same allegations investigated by EOCO and BNI. We point out that EOCO and BNI are state institutions mandated to investigate crime or allegations of crime, which was the basis of the allegations against the affected officers. It is instructive to note that the allegations against the affected officers were criminal in nature and not administrative. At the time of their said dismissals, EOCO and BNI had not released their reports and the affected persons were in court, challenging the decision of the Council to have them step aside and also to investigate them. Why was the University in a hurry to dismiss them for the so-called gross misconduct? Why the shift from the allegation of procurement breaches to gross misconduct for allegedly not appearing before a committee, whose power was being challenged in a court of law? Why would an internal investigative committee’s decision have pre-eminence over that of constitutionally mandated investigative and anti-graft institutions?

It is very disingenuous for the University to say that the affected officers masterminded and perpetrated injustice unto themselves, by refusing to appear before the Disciplinary Committee. As stated in (1) above, the setting up of this committee was being challenged in a superior forum of adjudicature, and it is trite knowledge that any law abiding and fair minded person or institution should have waited for the adjudicatory outcome of that case, before going on with its own processes. To the extent that the University did not pursue this course of action, it denied them an opportunity to be heard, sinning against the rules of natural justice, resulting in the injustice perpetrated by the University on the affected officers.
 
There is no gainsaying the fact that the Governing Council of the University is the highest decision-making body in the institution, however, its powers and functions are to be exercised within the bounds of the Constitution of Ghana. Article 23 of our constitution states: “Administrative bodies and administrative officials shall act fairly and reasonably and comply with the requirements imposed on them by law and persons aggrieved by the exercise of such acts and decisions have the right to seek redress before a court or other tribunal”. Thus, the powers and decisions of the Governing Council are not absolute, in so far as they are subject to judicial review.
 
It is NOT true that Prof Avoke, or any of the dismissed staff, has ever challenged their dismissal in the Supreme Court. We challenge the University to make such applications and their corresponding rulings available to the public. The only forum that the affected staff have ever challenged the dismissal is the High Court. The affected officers, being dissatisfied with the ruling given by the High Court, have mounted an appeal at the Appeals Court in Civil Appeal No. E10/04/18. This means that whatever affirmation the university is talking of is not conclusive yet. In any case, the matters sent to the Supreme Court by the affected officers have nothing to do with their dismissal. 
 
In his Speech on 31st December 2019, the Former President alluded to the injustices meted out to the affected officers and not the fact of their having been asked to step aside, which was the subject of the case before the Cape Coast High Court. As for the choice of the forum for judicial adjudication, the rules are very clear on that, and in so far as the rules permitted the applicants to choose the Cape Coast High Court, it is disingenuous for the University to allude to that in the press statement. All that the Former President wanted to convey is that just as Prof. Avoke and others were told to step aside for allegedly committing various offences, the current leadership of the university, who are now similarly situated, with various allegations of criminality hanging over their heads, must also be asked to step aside.  A member of the Governing Council Mr. Bruno Bajuaose Chirani, who doubles as Acting Finance officer of the University under the current leadership, has petitioned the Governing Council and Security and Anti-graft Agencies to investigate the current Vice-Chancellor Rev. Prof. Afful Broni in a letter dated 2nd September, 2019. Details are in the public domain for your reference. So, what then is the benchmark for administrative justice in your University in these circumstances? Why should a petition from an acting finance officer responsible for the day to day financial operation of the university, bothering on malfeasance and gross financial misconduct be thrown to the trash can? 
 
It is interesting how the University is seeking to misrepresent the ruling given by the Cape Coast High Court on the 11th of November, 2019 as a landmark ruling. It is absolutely disingenuous in the legal realm to say that a ruling of a High Court brings authoritative finality to a matter. Especially so, when the said ruling is now the subject matter of an appeal mentioned in (4) above. Litigation can only finally end at the Supreme Court. It was for this reason that the earlier High Court rulings on the UEW impasse were overturned and quashed by the Appeals Court and Supreme Court.
 
The office wishes to state that the former President is absolutely certain about the authenticity of the EOCO Report he has access to, and if the university feels the said Report is inaccurate, they should furnish the accurate version for scrutiny. There was an official cover letter attached to the report and signed by the Executive Secretary of EOCO. If there was any doubt as to the authenticity of the report, why was the Executive Secretary not invited or subpoenaed to authenticate the report?  In any case, if fraud or suspicion of fraud was perpetrated by the affected officers, concerning the EOCO Report, why were they not referred to the appropriate authorities for further investigations?
 
Let us emphasise that former President Rawlings has never been deceived about the existence of an EOCO Report. He is very much aware of his responsibilities and would not be carried away by the antics of so-called disgruntled individuals. The EOCO Report exists and is very authentic. The question to be answered here is, if the University did not apply to EOCO for an investigation to be conducted and were also not interested in such an investigation, how come they used it as the basis of asking the affected officers to step aside, as captured in their 7th November, 2017 Press Release? The University is contradicting itself, and seeking to tag the Former President as though he was not well informed? If there is any doubt about this assertion, they should refer themselves to their own press files.