[ 2017-03-14 ]

Baba Kamara

Baba Kamara inflated Vice President’s bungalow cost by $8m - Ex-NDC MP
A former MP for Salaga, Ibrahim Dey, has accused
former National Security Advisor to former
President John Mahama, Mr Baba Kamara, of
unilaterally inflating by $8million, the cost of a
bungalow being put up by the state to house the
Vice President.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in late January
2017 revealed that the Mahama administration had
pegged the cost of the edifice at $13.9million.

According to him, he was "shocked" when he was
told of the price for the house, which, in his
view, was "most likely sole-sourced".

Speaking at a Good Corporate Governance Initiative
event at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra on Tuesday,
31 January, Dr Bawumia said: "...There was this
brouhaha about the vice president's residence, I'm
sure you heard about that, so in the context of
discussing this issue, there's supposed to be a
vice president's residence under construction,
official, so to speak, so, I asked the question:
why is this project being delayed, why hasn't it
been finished? And they said: 'Well, the
contractor is owed a lot of money.' I said: 'Well
how much is this money?' And then I'm told it is
actually a lot of money. How much is this house
actually costing? And I was shocked when I was
told. Can you believe in Ghana we are building a
house to house our vice president and this house
is supposed to cost $13.9million? I mean what sort
of house is this supposed to be? I mean, is the
gate made of gold, the pavement of gold, the
blocks of gold? [A] house in Ghana for 13.9
million dollars? I couldn’t believe it. How many
boreholes couldn't we have done [with such an
amount?]. Of course I'm 100 per cent sure it
didn't go through competitive tender otherwise we
would have known about it. It was most likely
sole-sourced and there it stands uncompleted, but
this is just an example of many contracts that we
don't have value for money for …"

The NDC’s General Secretary Johnson Asiedu
Nketia later argued that the amount involved was
$3.5m and not $13.9m as claimed by the Vice
President.

In a leaked telephone conversation, however, Mr
Dey, an NDC member, revealed that Mr Kamara is
responsible for the inflation of the cost of the
project. “What is happening in our party? Are we
safe? …You see, if you know somebody in BNI,
let’s tip them about Baba Kamara. You know that
money issue, he [Kamara] was the one involved: the
vice president’s house. He was the one
involved.”

According to Mr Dey, then-Vice President Kwesi
Amissah-Arthur estimated $3.5m for the project but
that amount was later increased by $1.5m after
which, he said, Mr Kamara unilaterally, on the
blindside of Mr Amissah-Arthur, increased the
amount by $8m more of which “he [Kamara] took
$6m.” Mr Dey said Mr Kamara informed the
contractor working on the project that the extra
cost would be borne by the office of National
Security.

Also, Mr Dey claimed there were about six state
cars parked in Mr Kamara’s Salaga residence and
urged his interlocutor to blow the lid on the
former National Security Advisor.

“What kind of person is this? Even with all
this, he is still coming to take our common fund,
he is still not satisfied. We must also leak tapes
to the people we know because this is the chance
that we have to deal with this guy once and for
all. If you know any of the BNI [personnel],
we’ll give him tapes, I mean those on the
NPP’s side, to find a way to deal with this
man,” Mr Dey is heard saying on the tape.

Meanwhile, the Salaga South constituency of the
NDC has petitioned the Prof Kwesi Botchwey-led
committee that is probing the defeat of the party,
to question Mr Kamara, who they accuse of
“deliberately and maliciously orchestrating”
and “masterminding” the NDC’s defeat in the
constituency.

PETITION BY SALAGA NDC ON WHY THE PARTY LOST THE
SALAGA SOUTH SEAT

We the underlisted concerned members of the Salaga
South constituency of the National Democratic
Congress (NDC), wish to bring to the notice of the
National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party,
the Kwesi-Botchwey fact-finding committee, the
Council of Elders, and all the other organs and
stakeholders of the party, the causes of our
unexpected defeat in the 2016 parliamentary
election at the constituency.

First of all, we need to make it clear that the
defeat of the party in the constituency in last
year’s elections was deliberately and
maliciously orchestrated by the former National
Security Adviser, Alhaji Baba Kamara and his paid
agents at the constituency.

The simple reason he gave for masterminding the
defeat of the parliamentary candidate in the
Salaga South constituency in his own words is to
show the then MP and parliamentary candidate
Alhaji Ibrahim Dey ‘where power lies’.

The NDC has since the inception of democratic rule
in 1992 enjoyed tremendous support from the Salaga
South (formerly Salaga) constituency, winning the
parliamentary seat on four out of the seven
elections so far.

But on almost all the seven elections since 1992,
the NDC has been able to win the presidential
elections by big margins, a clear indication that
with the right strategy the party should be able
to always win the parliamentary seat too.

It must be made clear and unequivocal that while
he made little or no contribution to the party’s
sustenance and victories in the constituency, Baba
Kamara has on almost all the three occasions
single-handedly masterminded the party’s
parliamentary elections defeat especially in the
years 2000 and 2016.

The simple reason is to satisfy his ego and punish
those candidates or MPs he thinks are working hard
for the people or showing some signs of
independence and resistance to the corrupt systems
he wants to put in place at the constituency.

Again, since 1992, he has sought to create and
institute the twin British-style of Indirect Rule
and ‘divide and rule tactics’ in the Salaga
South constituency, using intimidation, financial
inducement, character assassination and other
negative Machiavellian political strategies. He
practises Indirect Rule in the sense that he
hardly comes out to campaign or even do anything
to help the party or the people of the
constituency in their developmental agenda. In
fact one even hardly sees him in any gatherings or
any meetings in the constituency and actually many
party people even hardly know him in person.

But he always finds a way of using some few
selected ‘shadowy’ but selfish individuals in
the constituency to carry out his negative,
selfish and destructive activities against the
party, the constituency and the people in
general.

While Larry Gbevlo Lartey and General Nunoo-Mensah
used their offices as National Security
Coordinator and Adviser respectively to help build
schools and provide water (boreholes) and other
amenities for their people and Ghanaians in
general, Baba Kamara has used his position as
national security adviser to destroy others for
his selfish and egoistic interests. It must be
noted that, since 1992, Baba Kamara has never
built or initiated or even lobbied for one single
project for the constituency. He will not also
allow people who would want to help to have peace
of mind. He always undermines them either by
knocking their heads with others or furtively
working against them using his paid agents at the
constituency.

Again, as part of the divide-and-rule tactics at
the constituency, he has always knocked the heads
of the MPs and the DCEs together since 1992. For
instance, in 2013 when he handpicked Mr Lukeman
Aminu as the DCE, despite overwhelming
protestation from party people and the general
population of the district, he oriented him to
always confront the sitting MP, Alhaji Ibrahim
Dey. The battle between the DCE and the MP
needlessly raged till the NDC eventually lost the
2016 elections with both the DCE and the MP losing
their positions. He has also created a wide
division within the party executives, with
constituency chairman on his side working for the
defeat of the party’s parliamentary candidate
and others also working for victory.

We in Salaga, his hometown, are not surprised that
many party activists and supporters nationwide are
complaining about Baba Kamara’s negative and
destructive roles in ensuring that the party and
the President lost the 2016 polls. We have been
living witnesses and have been at the receiving
end of his wickedness and viciousness since 1992.
We, therefore, agonised at the political fate of
President Mahama when he brought him closer and
later appointed him as his National Security
Adviser. We knew from the beginning that it was
just a matter of time that disaster would strike
our affable and innocent President and his
well-performing government. In the Eastern
Corridor of the Northern Region that he claims he
controls, only one constituency (Salaga North) has
been won by the NDC. The Salaga South, (his
hometown); Bimbilla, Wulensi, Kpandai, Yendi, have
all been lost.

Here in Salaga South, while he hardly supports the
party on the ground, he has always stymied our
efforts towards building strong structures and
always using intimidating tactics against leading
members of the party who are willing to support
the party.

In the 2016 elections, he sponsored two
independent parliamentary candidates from the
Salaga South constituency in order to deliberately
divide the party’s support base and implant a
seed of division to cause the defeat of the
party.

Baba Kamara again set up a counter NDC campaign
team led by the constituency chairman of the
party, Mr Fuseini Yussif, and one Dan Saaka Ahmed,
a political turncoat who entered into NDC and
contested its parliamentary primary in 2016
ostensibly to cover for his roles in the infamous
SADA scandal and seeks political protection from
looming prosecution. Baba Kamara gave these two
individuals and others resources meant for the
party to actually campaign secretly against the
party and its parliamentary candidate. As the
party lost, we uncovered that they had set up an
elaborate and effective underground campaign
structure calling for ‘skirt and blouse,’ at
mainly NDC strongholds.

In addition, Baba Kamara personally flooded
torrent of cash on the NPP parliamentary campaign
at the constituency using known NPP supporters.
So, in the final analysis, the NPP was able to
maintain its support base on the ground while that
of the NDC was fragmented with some votes going to
the two independent candidates.

Furthermore, campaign materials and resources
meant for NDC parliamentary campaigns were
diverted to the NPP. This was done according to
Baba Kamara in order to “teach the NDC
parliamentary candidate some important lessons of
life” for disrespecting him, as the political
“Overlord” of the constituency.

Again, agents of Baba Kamara, led by the
constituency chairman and Mr Dan Saaka Ahmed, used
financial inducement to compromise some of the
party agents selected to protect the party’s
votes across the constituency. Some of the agents
have since confessed their sins and regretted
their actions.

Last but not the least, the then Police Commander
at the East Gonja district and some military men
deployed to ensure law and order at the
constituency intimidated and later ordered most
NDC agents at the Salaga Community Centre where
the constituency results were being collated to
leave the scene. When confronted, the commander
confirmed that he was taking an order from
“above”, while he, Baba Kamara (the national
security adviser), was staying in his house less
than 400 yards from the collation centre. This
paved the way for massive irregularities and
rigging against the incumbent MP. In fact, the
constituency secretary, Mr Thomas Langba, who was
leading the party at the collation centre, was
told that his safety could not be guaranteed by
the security forces and had to immediately vacate
the place.

Despite all these machinations by Alhaji Baba
Kamara and his paid agents, the parliamentary
candidate for the Salaga South constituency,
Alhaji Ibrahim Dey, lost the elections by less
than 30 votes, with the case pending in court.

While we write this petition to reveal the
negative roles played by Baba Kamara and his
agents, we also need to take this opportunity to
bring to the attention of the party the important
positive roles Mr Ibrahim Mahama, President
Mahama’s brother, played towards the 2016
elections in the Salaga South constituency. It is
his singular and dedicated support that brought us
far and we would like to thank him for his
support.

With all the issues raised above, we are calling
on the NEC and the Dr Kwesi Botchwey-led
fact-finding committee to institute a full-scale
investigation into the circumstances leading to
the loss of the important Salaga South
constituency and the (negative) roles played by
Alhaji Baba Kamara. The party should work hard to
provide a long-lasting antidote to the perennial
problems caused by the political activities of Mr.
Kamara. In our opinion, this is the only way the
party can ever regain the seat and maintain it at
the constituency.

SIGNED

Dramani I. Wisdom (0247809142)

Mohammad Awal

Mohammad Umarana

Jafaru Mahama

Shiibu Babamu

Abu Yakubu

Muhammed Ibn Hafiz

Aminu Haruna

Muhammed Taaha

Source - classfmonline.com

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