The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has offered free counsel to President John Dramani Mahama, which is for him to cease the embarrassment he is inviting upon himself by demanding from the NPP running mate, Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, a disclosure of the cost of the cedi redenomination exercise  in 2007.

The President, while addressing party supporters at a mammoth rally in Accra on Tuesday, accused the NPP of corruption in the exercise, which took place at a time the NPP running mate was a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana.

With Dr Bawumia being his target, a worried President Mahama told the gathering that: “At least my administration has been transparent and accountable in all projects we have undertaken, but the same cannot be said about the NPP government whose activities were shrouded in secrecy,” he announced.

In his estimation, “the NPP failed to remove the log in their eyes, but rather want Ghanaians to think that we are corrupt by making false corruption allegations about our projects. They think Ghanaians have forgotten about their corrupt practices,” he added.

In a sharp rebuttal, however, Dr Bawumia, who culled a Daily Graphic publication in November 2007 to prove a point, emphasised that being oblivious of the cost of the exercise which had been put in the public domain some nine years ago, meant that the president does not read.

According to him, “Today’s request for disclosure on the 2007 redenomination is another demonstration of incompetence. Apart from the fact that the then Governor disclosed the cost as far back as 2007, if the President really wanted to find out the cost of the redenomination, he could simply have asked his VEEP, who was Bank of Ghana Governor, especially when the President was Head of the Economic Management Team between 2009 and 2012,” he stated.

Dr Bawumia could not fathom the President’s decision to make a comment of that nature, saying “Such petty propaganda should be beneath someone of the stature of a President. It is clear he is very poorly briefed, but when a President decides to join the bandwagon of propaganda, he only ends up embarrassing himself.”

The Director of Communications of the NPP, Nana Akomea, commenting further in a telephone interview, expressed shock that the president, who members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) labelled as technology savvy could be unaware of the figure of the redenomination exercise.

“We are told he is IT savvy, so all he had to do was to pick his phone and google it. Just two clicks on the button on the internet,” he stressed, explaining that, Mr Mahama’s declaration pointed to the fact that vital information was being hidden from him, which amounted to corruption. It’s such an embarrassing conclusion,” Nana Akomea observed, as he urgently demanded responses from the NDC Presidential candidate about Dr Bawumia’s 170 statements contained in his last lecture concerning the bad governance of the country under the current administration.

ghanaian chronicle