The President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will tonight address the nation on the controversial military agreement his government has committed the country into with the Government of the United States of America.
But the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) doesn’t want the President to restrict himself to commenting on the military deal alone since there are some other pressing issues which have happened within the last two weeks Ghanaians would love him to comment on too.
One of such issues is the alleged appointment of Data Bank as the Transaction Advisor to the Ministry of Finance.
Addressing a press conference in Accra, Thursday, the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, said it would be of great interest to the President to speak on the Data Bank issue and clear the air since a lot of Ghanaians are worried about the conflict of interest his cousin, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, is meddling into.
Mr. Ofori-Atta, according to the NDC Chief Scribe, is the owner of Data Bank and therefore, beats their imagination why he (Ofori-Atta) will appoint “his own bank” as a Transaction Advisor to a Ministry that he is superintending over.
“We have had course to remind the President that the Finance Minister is putting himself in a conflict of interest situation. First it was about the bonds and now we are moving to the appointment of his company as a Transaction Advisor to the Ministry of Finance. We are not expecting that the President will come praising and present him as a gift from God to Ghana. We want to him from him as far as this matter is concerned”, he noted.
The opposition NDC had prior to the presentation of this year’s State of the Nation Address by the President, accused the Finance Minister of conflict of interest in the issuance of the US$2.25billion in April last year and demanded his immediate removal from office.
But the President, in his message on the State of the Nation, showered praises on Mr. Ofori-Atta for helping revive the Ghanaian economy which was nearing collapse under the watch of then governing NDC headed by John Dramani Mahama.
Mr. Asiedu Nketiah commenting further, however, said they’ve had enough of the praises on the Finance Minister, daring the President to speak to the issue at stake rather than to sing praises on his cousin once again.
