[ 2017-01-20 ]

Senior Minister designate, Yaw Osafo-Marfo

Osafo-Marfo rubbishes CNTCI, Macmillan scandals; fires at Ablakwa
Senior Minister designate Yaw Osafo-Marfo has
described as a "frivolous propaganda" allegations
that he superintended over two major financial
scandals- CNT/CI loan and MacMillan- whilst in
office as minister of state between 2001 and
2006.

Appearing before Parliament's Appointment
Committee, the Senior Minister designate appeared
to be in no mood to entertain the "mischievous
allegations" and sought to suggest that MP for
North Tongu Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa was too young
to understand the details of those two issues at
the time.

Mr Ablakwa wanted the nominee to answer to the two
scandals that rocked the Kufuor administration and
what role the nominee played in all of it. "I
think you were too young at the time to understand
the issue," Marfo fired, a statement which was
considered unparliamentary and was asked to
withdraw and apologise which he did.

CNTCI

In 2004, the Kufuor government with Osafo-Marfo as
minister at the time solicited for an amount of US
$300 million loan from the CNT Construction
Investment Ltd.(CNTCI Ltd) to undertake major
infrastructural projects.

The National Democratic Congress in opposition
described the loan as fraudulent. The party also
questioned the credibility of the company from
which the loan was sought.

The then General Secretary of the NDC at the time
said the loan was sought from an hairdressing
salon not a company with the financial muscle to
provide a loan to the Ghana government.

The then government mounted a defence for the loan
but said there was an error in the telephone
number of the company which may have been directed
to the hairdressing salon. The government later
backed down after major criticism.

Macmillan scandal

A year after the CNTCI scandal came another one in
2005 in which the then minister was accused of
fraudulently sole sourcing a US$ 27 million deal
to Macmillan Company to provide text books to the
Ghana Education Service. The then opposition did
not understand why the minister had to sole source
such a contract to Macmillan and without any
parliamentary approval.

They accused the Osafo-Marfo of setting aside
cheaper bids from Heinemann, Oxford and Longman in
respect of the supply of the textbooks.

Appointment Committee

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa wanted finality on the
issue and demanded from the appointee to explain
into details what role he played in the scandals
Yaw Osafo-Marfo stated unequivocally that there
was no wrong doing in those two scandals insisting
they were only mischievous allegations.

He said on the CNTCI, the government needed money
at the time for infrastructural projects and he
received a proposal from CNTCI about the
possibility of them providing the loan.

He said when he received the proposal they had to
conduct due diligence on the company to know if
the company was credit worthy.

He stated that when the scandal broke a press
conference was organised at the time to explain
the issue after which he went to Parliament to
announce their withdrawal for the loan hunt.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

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