[ 2012-07-13 ]

I have the approval of my bosses in everything I do – Okudzeto Ablakwa
Contrary to claims the Deputy Minister of
Information Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has been
usurping the role of his bosses and rendering them
useless, he says he has the approval of his bosses
in everything he does.

“It is not my fault that I do what I do so well
but the truth is that I have the approval of my
bosses in everything I do,” he said on Metro TV
Good Morning Ghana current affairs show.

The Deputy Minister was responding to a claim by
Former Attorney-General Martin Amidu that he
(Okudzeto) called him and begged him to sanction
the payment of a judgement debt of $1.5million to
Isofoton SA.

Martin Amidu had said that call from the Deputy
Minister defied due process because it should have
come from his boss the Minister of Information;
and secondly it was totally out of order for the
Deputy Minister to plead for Isofoton SA to be
paid.

Meanwhile during the four years of this
government, Information Ministers have been
changed three times, and even other deputies have
been changed a number of times, but Samuel
Okudzeto Ablakwa has remained in at post
throughout the four years.

But Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said he is 'shocked'
at the outburst of Martin Amidu because he never
begged him to pay Isofoton, adding that he seems
to be the unfortunate victim of Mr. Amidu because
someone else said something that he (Amidu) did
not like.

"Mr. Amidu is fond of that because the other day
someone compared him to Dr. Benjamin Kumbour and
the next moment he was attacking Dr. Kumbour
instead of the one who made the comparison," he
said.

The Deputy Minister said he does not do anything,
including calling Martin Amidu, without the
approval of his boss the Minister of Information,
adding that the claim that he undermines his
bosses is also not true because he is good friends
with his two previous bosses and the current one,
Fritz Baffuor.

“My boss always says I am his favorite and John
Tia AKolugu is one of my best friends and as for
Miss Zita Okaikoi, I was the special guest of
honour at the launch of her campaign for the
Dome-Kwabenya seat, so it is not true that
undermined any of them,” he said.

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has for some weeks now
been on a crusade to disclose judgement debts owed
to some companies due to “the recklessness of the
previous government”, and he has been making a
case for why those moneys must be paid.

He is now telling the public that he has the
approval of his boss, the Minister of Information
to embark on that crusade.

But Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa is not alone in this
claim to approval from bosses to do things which
lots of Ghanaians are worried about.

Former Attorney-General Betty Mould Iddrisu, who
is credited for the payment of several of the
controversial judgement debts and settlements,
also told the Parliamentary Public Accounts
Committee (PAC) that she also had “executive
approval” for everything she did as a Minister of
State.

Meanwhile, the head of the executive, President
John Evans Ata Mills has said he had no knowledge
of the payment of the gargantuan GHS51 million
judgement debt to Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, so the
question has been asked as to what Madam
Mould-Iddrisu meant by 'executive approval'.

Touching on that matter, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
rubbished the public discussion on whether due
process was followed in paying those debts as
peripheral, saying that Ghanaians should rather
focus on the more important issue of how the debts
were incurred in the first place.

He also said it is petty for people to raise
question about what Madam Mould-Iddrisu meant by
'executive approval' because the most important
issues was whether the former president John
Agyekum Kufuor was also aware of the piling
interests on those judgement debts and whether he
approved of their non-payment at the expense of
the country.

“Some of the companies we owed money to went for
international arbitration and threatened to sell
our assets abroad to defray the cost, so we saved
this country a great deal in interest accruing and
from the loss of our overseas assets by paying the
relatively meager out of court settlements,” he
said.

The point has also been raised that those paid the
huge judgement debts did not pay the taxes due on
those moneys as itemized by the Ghana Revenue
Authority, but the Deputy Minister said it is also
petty to focus on meager taxes when “we could have
avoided the debt in the first place but for the
recklessness of the previous NPP government.”

Source - Adomfm

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