QUOTABLE QUOTES IN QUOTES

“You must not allow yourselves to be influenced financially and materially but you must support those who are competent, dedicated and loyal to our great party”.

NPP Presidential Aspirant In Forgery Scandal

Your authoritative “The Ghana Palaver” is in possession of documentation that proves unequivocally that one of the leading Presidential aspirants for the NPP’s December 22 National Delegates Congress has had his party papers forged for him.

The Presidential aspirant, who apparently is not a registered, card-bearing member of the NPP, has contrived to have the registration documents of one of the constituencies in the Greater Accra Region doctored in order to have his name inserted in the list as having been registered on 22nd April 2007. He has also been issued with an unsigned and undated Party registration card which also does not have the identity of his Polling Station.

“The Ghana Palaver” is for now withholding the name of the aspirant as well as his Party registration number, hoping that the aspirant will not be presenting those forged registration particulars with his completed registration form.

“The Ghana Palaver” has shown the documentation in its possession to some executive members of the NPP. Their reactions have all been the same. The documents are a forgery, and crude forgeries at that. But even in their forged form, the documents still will not qualify the aspirant to contest because the NPP Constitution requires all aspirants to be card-bearing members of the party and to have been Party members in good standing for at least five (5) years.

Said a top aide of one of the rival Presidential candidate aspirants to whom “The Ghana Palaver” also showed the documentation: “If he (the aspirant) makes the mistake of submitting his forms along with those forged documents, that will be his end in Ghanaian politics and we strongly advice him not to dream of submitting the forms he has picked up since we are aware that he has no other documentation apart from the forged ones”.

KUFUOR FAMILY...To Lose Billions Of Cedis

Following the death of Nana Boateng their beloved front man

Nana Boateng, the beloved front man of the Kufuor family, is dead. He fell ill about six weeks ago and went into a coma for about a week from which he never recovered.

Nana Boateng died on Thursday 18th October 2007 at the youthful age of 54 years. It had been decided that he should be flown abroad for treatment, to be accompanied by Felicia Kufuor, President Kufuor’s niece, but this arrangement fell through when he fell into a coma.

The following story about the life and death of Nana Boateng, the beloved front man of the Kufuor family, has been given exclusively to "The Ghana Palaver" by a Kufuor household insider. We do not vouch for the accuracy of the information.

Nana Boateng has an Ashanti father and a Fante mother who hails from Apam. He attended Apam Secondary School where he earned the nickname “Baby Face”. He is a half-brother (same father) of Kwame Boateng (Wofa), the “Chief of Staff” in President Kufuor’s household.

During the 2004 elections, Nana Boateng’s assignment was to induce the chiefs and opinion leaders in the Central Region, using all the familiar NPP tactics of “monetisation” and “treating”, to vote for the NPP and President Kufuor, an assignment he performed to perfection.

Three months after the elections, Nana Boateng was given about 45 outboard motors and over ¢3 billion by a top NPP official of the Agricultural Development Bank to take to some of the more prominent chiefs in the Central Region as “thank you” for a job well done.

In real life, Nana Boateng had a Company called “Pro-Vision” about which "The Ghana Palaver" has written previously. Pro-Vision deals in laminated paper, election ballot paper, and other materials used by the Electoral Commission for elections.

Nana Boateng also owned “Bowohomoden Company Limited”, a Licensed Cocoa Buying Company, and a GOIL Filling Station at Nsawam as well as several other business interests.

Nana Boateng was a “companion” and partner of Nana Ama Kufuor, daughter of President J. A. Kufuor and sister of the “41 year old accountant” owner of Hotel Kufuor, “Chief” John Addo Kufuor.

Nana Boateng and Nana Ama Kufuor began engaging in a lot of business deals once daddy John Agyekum Kufuor became President and the two became fabulously rich. Indeed so rich did Nana Boateng become that it is alleged he was one of the ten richest people in Ghana with millions of United States dollars in his bank accounts overseas.

But everybody in the Kufuor family knows that the monies in those overseas bank accounts do not belong to Nana Boateng. For this reason, there was fear and consternation in the Kufuor household when Nana Boateng fell sick. The consternation reached dizzying heights when he fell into a coma and could therefore not sign any documents transferring his enormous wealth to the real owners of the monies.

Our insider source has asked us to raise the following pertinent questions:

· Is it true that by Nana Boateng’s death, some foreign Banks have been made richer since his millions of dollars in those banks cannot be accessed?

· Is it true that some persons in Ghana would lose those millions of dollars if Nana Boateng was not able to divulge his bank account numbers to them before he fell into a coma and died?

Nana Boateng’s is a classic case of from rags to extreme riches. In the 1990s, even though Nana Boateng set up a company and acquired a licence to operate as a Licensed Cocoa Buying Company, he could not raise enough collateral and neither was he deemed to be that credit worthy. For those reasons, his bankers refused to guarantee his applications for loans from Ghana Cocoa Board. Indeed Nana Boateng’s Company, Bowohomoden Co. Ltd. never purchased more than 2,500 tonnes cocoa in any year in those times.

However, when his half brother became head of President Kufuor’s household and when he became a “companion” and partner of President Kufuor’s daughter, his circumstances changed dramatically and by the time he died he was exceedingly rich.

Nana Boateng’s story confirms the belief by many that in Ghana, the shortest route to riches and wealth is by acquiring political power.

Nana Boateng is one of the businessmen politicians who before they joined President Kufuor’s NPP Government in 2001 were virtual paupers but after only six and half years of NPP in power have become fabulously rich.

Some other Kufuor acolytes have made such rich friends that they can raise billions of cedis at one fund raising dinner and can also import ready for distribution to all 230 constituency Chairmen of the NPP brand new vehicles for their flagbearership campaigns.

HIPC Funds

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu Member of Parliament for Tamale South has called on President John Agyekum Kufuor to launch a forensic audit on the disbursement of the HIPC Funds, Common Fund and that of National Health Insurance Scheme from 2005 to 2007.

He pointed out that if an independent audit is conducted on the said funds the findings would be worse than what is being revealed from the on-going Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, adding that some people were given loans under the HPIC fund and have since not repaid.

Mr. Iddrisu made the call at a forum organized by the Tertiary Education Institutions Network of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) (TEIN) University of Cape Coast (UCC) branch at Cape Coast under the theme: “NDC laying a solid foundation for national development after 2008”.

The forum was geared towards marketing the party’s strategies for national development towards next year’s general elections.

He said in view of this, the minority would be tough in approving this years national budget, especially in the allocation of funds to the District Assembly Common Fund and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to avoid the misappropriation of public funds.

Mr Iddrisu said the NDC was not against the government’s plans for massive capital investment in the country but that loans sourced should be properly done through parliament to avoid any ambiguities and questioning.

He asked the government to ensure that Ministers of State who are found wanting in the revelation of the Public Accounts Committee should take responsibility for the revelations and take charge of whatever happens.

Touching on the 2008 election, he expressed confidence the NDC would win 2008 and that everything would be done to achieve this goal, stressing that the NDC would demand a massive electoral reforms from the district to the national level.     

He said NDC would remain committed to the stability, peace and tranquility prevailing in the country and asked that the Electoral Commission should be allowed to exercise its constitutional mandate to ensure free and fair credible elections in 2008.

He said the NDC would not have an excuse to cry foul in the 2008 election and that the members should play their roles effectively to be vigilant during the voting and that they should campaign on policies and programmes that would help the party to win.

 Mr Haruna said Professor John Atta Mills was the right candidate for the party and they should market him as a person with accomplishment, character, justice and compassion.

According to him, Prof Mills has distinguished himself as a man of integrity and that there had not been any instance his administration that anyone had had the course to question his integrity, adding that he would implement policies that are human centred.

He said under Prof. Mill’s administration, the NHIS Law would be reviewed and that the age limit for the aged would be reduced to 60 years to be commensurate with the retirement age of workers instead of the current 70, stressing the life expectancy of an average Ghanaian was 54 years.

He said children of 18 year would be made to benefit from the scheme whether their parents registered or not so as to ensure health care for all and not a selected few.

Mr Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka MP for Asawase also expressed concern about the implementation of the NHIS, stressing that there were some lapses and that with the current situation where every district has its own identity card was creating problems for the public, since people cannot asses health care when they are away from the districts in which they registered.

He said the destiny of NDC winning the 2008 election was in the hands of the youth and asked them to fight for what is for them and urged the members of TEIN to act as polling agents, stressing that the party lost the 2004 elections because it did not have qualified polling agents.

Mr Muntaka also urged party members to stop backbiting and shifting blames and demanding monies form from executives but should contribute their quota to enable the party to win the 2008 election.

Mr Barton Oduro the Cape Coast Constituency Parliamentary candidate said people describe the UCC as the waterloo of the NDC and that they should disabuse their minds by voting for him in 2008.

He said there were some “safe constituencies” for the party and asked that TEIN members who were from such constituencies should consider transferring their vote to Cape Coast and commended the TEIN members for also embarking on door to door campaign on campus.

Mr. Michael Adonbire Asabire, President of TEIN,  said the members would continue to defend the cause of the party and that there was goodwill for the party on campus adding that, most people were fed up with the NPP administration and are yearning for a real positive change to embrace the NDC.

“Even though the NDC has a brighter chance of recapturing power in 2008, we have to do away with complacency and mediocrity and work extra hard till the battle is finally won in the 2008 general election,” he added