Woyome scandal has shot up Mills’ integrity- Anyidoho

The Alfred Woyome judgment debt scandal has shot up President John Mills’ integrity in leaps and bounds, the Director of Communications at the presidency has said.

Koku Anyidoho maintained Mills has shown enough conviction and “mettle” in a scandal that has taken two of his cabinet Ministers down- one through resignation and the other through dismissal- insisting that the president will not “sacrifice his integrity on the altar of anybody’s indiscretion.”

Alfred Woyome is in police custody over allegations he defrauded the State to the tune of some 58 million cedis in judgement debt paid him between 2010 and 2011.

The Chief State Attorney, Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh who according to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) report failed to defend the state and whose wife received an amount of 400,000 cedis from Alfred Woyome is also in police custody pending further investigations.

The scandal has kept the nation busy and the airwaves bleeding with politicians, journalists, social commentators, market women, students hardly discussing any other issue.

In an interview with Joy FM’s Super Morning Show host Kojo Oppong Nkrumah on Monday, the Director of Communications at the Presidency said the scandal has boosted the strength of John Mills as a swift but meticulous president who will not act on impulse.

Koku Anyidoho said unlike Mills’ predecessor John Kufuor, who set up an office of accountability at the presidency ostensibly to cover-up corrupt activities, this President has not attempted to cover-up or whitewash anything relating to the scandal. Rather, he (President) has acted to strengthen existing state institutions such as EOCO, Anyidoho noted.

He said if the President had acted “gidigidi” to wit, in haste, as critics and opponents clamoured for, nobody would have known that public officials were involved in the scandal either by misleading politicians or benefiting directly or indirectly from the scandal.The EOCO report which was commissioned at the behest of the President revealed that the President twice ordered that the money should not be paid to Woyome, but somehow it was, raising eyebrows about the Mills’ stranglehold on his appointees.

But Koku Anyidoho maintained critics got it all wrong. He explained that President Mills’ orders were fully obeyed to the letter.

According to him, when he (the President) heard that Woyome was going to be paid an amount of 41 million cedis he ordered that the money should not be paid to him. Subsequently when Woyome took the matter to court and was demanding 105 million cedis, President Mills insisted that his Attorney General must go to court and set aside the demands by Woyome. That too was respected, Anyidoho insisted.

The host queried how come the 58 million cedis was paid if indeed the President’s orders to his Attorney General had been respected but Anyidoho retorted: “there are so many ways of defending the matter including a negotiated [settlement].”

He said the government as an entity cannot be culpable for the fall-outs of the scandal but stressed individuals whose negligence led to the suspected financial loss to the state will be made to account.

Asked if the deputy Chief of Staff Alex Segbefia – who defended Woyome when the case broke – Deputy Attorney General Ebo Barton Oduro – who claimed the state had no case against Woyome – would be sacked, Mr Anyidoho explained the two are lawyers and had their own reasons for taking the stance they took.

He said he is not a lawyer and would rather wait until a court of law pronounced judgement on the culpability or otherwise of Woyome before a firm decision could be taken on those public officials.

Koku Anyidoho however served a note of caution to critics and opponents who he said have no economic vision and better alternative and are clutching to the straws of the Woyome scandal to score cheap political points to beware that “Ghanaians are discerning” and will not succumb to their whips.

Myjoyonline.com