[ 2014-03-11 ]

Grave looters strike at Baah-Wiredu
Disturbing news is emerging from the family of the
late Finance Minister, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu as
poverty has forced them to go cup-in-hand to raise
money to pay his children’s school fees, DAILY
GUIDE can confirm.

The condition of his family is such that when
grave looters recently destroyed his grave, they
were unable to raise the necessary funds to repair
the desecrated grave, sources close to the family
have told this paper.

“When I came, there were so many things that had
gone asunder; somebody has gone to break the tomb
and I asked what the person took because nowadays
we don’t bury people with gold and other things
so what I was expecting is that maybe they took
the bone,” Sam Obeng Tuudah, an uncle of the
late Baah Wiredu who resides in London,
exclusively told DAILY GUIDE.

Apparently, some of the alleged grave looters have
been arrested.

“We have started moving in, we started by
putting a watchman there [by the grave] to guard
against all those things, so we are taking care of
it,” Mr. Obeng Tuudah told DAILY GUIDE.

Mr. Tuudah attributed the deplorable condition of
the Baah-Wiredu family to mismanagement, “The
little that he left behind, we shared it among the
ladies but some of them, maybe, mismanaged it.”

“There is only one woman who has come to me that
she is finding difficulties in raising the
children. We will take care of that,” he said.

The situation came to light at the March 5, 2014
inaugural lectures in memory of the late Finance
Minister who allegedly died of prostate cancer in
South Africa in 2008.

At the inaugural lecture, Dr. Charles
Wereko-Brobby, the head of the Financial
Accountability and Transparency Trust, organizers
of the lectures, pleaded with patrons to drop cash
in designated boxes to help salvage the financial
situation of the Baah-Wiredu family.

Dr. Wereko-Brobby could not believe that a man who
was handling Ghana’s entire coffers would die a
pauper; “Here is a man; the Finance
Minister…how can you say his son can’t pay
school fees? Isn’t it pathetic? Special
assistants make money when they are in power and
the Finance Minister, the man who holds the public
purse, his children can’t pay school fees?”

Dr. Wereko-Brobby told DAILY GUIDE that during the
organization of the inaugural lectures,
Baah-Wiredu’s family assumed it was a
fundraising programme for them so they stormed the
organizers with a plethora of requests.

“The family came to us, they thought we were
doing some big fundraising event so they said his
children’s school fees, his grave has been
desecrated. I am more concerned about his
children’s school fees. I am sure his special
assistant makes some money, and strangely, Kwadwo
Baah-Wiredu, known as one of the most
incorruptible Ministers during the Kufuor-led New
Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, died in
office at 56 years.

He became finance minister in 2005.

He earned praise for his steady guidance of the
Ghanaian economy through a period of economic
growth fuelled by high prices for gold and cocoa
exports despite debilitating economic conditions
and a surge in inflation during his tenure.

Source - Daily Guide

... go Back