The Patriotic Forum For Accountable Governance (PaFFAG) has advised the electorate to be wary about the attempts by former President John Mahama to portray himself as someone who is concerned about their plight, insisting that he cannot be trusted as a leader.
The group claims, among other charges, that 40 out of the available 361 documents at its disposal expose how various state cars were purchased by high ranking NDC officials after they had lost the 2016 polls.
According to the group, 361 cars costing $110 million were sold by the Mahama administration to NDC appointees at a total of $3m, causing a loss of $107 million, equivalent GH¢ 1.5 billion, to the state.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, the Executive Director of PaFFAG, Kwame Baffoe Abronye, said should Ghanaians make the mistake of voting for Mahama in 2024, he would bring untold hardships on them because of his character “as a greedy leader”.
The group further accused Mr Mahama of breaking the Article 71 law, when he allowed most of his appointees who did not fall under Article 71 office holders’ category to benefit where they normally should not.
Cases
He claimed that the most classical among them involved Dzifa Attivor, who resigned as Transport Minister in 2015, after the dubious bus branding scandal. Attivor, however, received an end of service benefit or gratuity upon the instructions of Mr Mahama, according to the group.
He also cited Sylvester Mensah, who resigned as NHIA CEO in 2015, “but also received an end of service benefit”.
“The rest are Sidii Abubakar, who was an ordinary youth organiser but also received end of service benefit. What service did he render to the nation? Raymond Atuguba resigned as Executive Secretary to the President in 2015, yet he received an end of service benefit,” he added.
He stated, however, that after President Akufo-Addo had promised not to allow any appointee of his government purchase his or her official vehicle or residence, he stuck to his promises.
“At the end of his first term in government, NO government appointee was made to purchase his official government vehicle. This can be verified from the Intercity STC Coaches Ltd as they are the main valuers of government vehicles,” he maintained
Abuse
Citing a list of government cars sold at cheap prices, the group said what was mind blowing was how some of the vehicles were sold to persons who were not entitled to end-of-service benefits because they were not political appointees as at the time those vehicles were allocated to them.
“John Mahama paid ex gratia and end of service benefits to ‘ghost’ i.e persons who were not political appointees entitled under Article 71 of the 1992 Constitution.
“All the claims by John Mahama to implement the Constitution Review Report is a hoax, as at page 91 of the NDC 2012 manifesto, it was provided that: ‘The NDC Government has accepted virtually all the recommendations of the Commission as indicated in the Government White Paper on the subject,” the group stated.
