The Minority Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has described as shameful, President Akufo-Addo’s dismissal of the Minority’s concerns on the Oslo Chancery controversy.
According to him, the president’s response on the matter during his encounter with some pressmen on Wednesday was embarrassing, considering the fact that there are documents to prove the Ministry’s agreement to the deal, which Ablakwa describes as scandalous.
President Akufo-Addo, at the press encounter at the Jubilee House, dismissed the Minority’s allegations of a bloated project cost describing them as empty and without substance.
“Assuming for the sake of argument with the transaction not taken place and we were to make the allocation that we paid too much. But this is the transaction, it has not taken place so how then can you begin to make statements about corruption and misappropriation? On the basis of this bare allegation without more, would I then say let us have an independent inquiry? My government won’t spend all our time at inquiries because clearly it is a pattern of the opposition to throw these accusations into the air and when they are debunked, they don’t hear anything about it. They just move to the next allegation,” Akufo-Addo said.
But Ablakwa believes the president has demonstrated a lack of interest in addressing the problem.
“What happened is an unspeakable shame and a total embarrassment to our country. This is not leadership because your own Foreign Affairs Minister has submitted documents to the Parliamentary select Committee on Foreign Affairs that show that by the end of this year they were going to pay for that property. Documents that show that an agreement has been reached and the scandalous amount of the two properties has been agreed to by the ministry of foreign affairs. The president cannot say that this transaction is just a figment of the opposition’s imagination, that facts that does support it,” Ablakwa said.
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Citifmonline
