Member of Parliament (MP) for Obuasi West Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Kwaku Kwarteng has told President John Mahama to concentrate on governing the nation and tackling corruption in his government rather than attacking the Vice Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
The NPP running-mate, Dr Bawumia has consistently criticised President Mahama and his government for engaging in corrupt practices citing various contracts which were awarded on sole sourcing basis as examples.
President Mahama, in an apparent reply to Dr Bawumia's accusations of corruption, on Tuesday at a rally in the Ablekuma North constituency of the Greater Accra Region, stated that Dr Bawumia who was a Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana at the time the cedi redenomination was carried out, could only criticise him if came clean on how much it cost government to undertake the exercise.
“Do we remember the cedi redenomination under President Kufuor. During that time, someone [Bawumia] was the Deputy Bank of Ghana and up till now, even me as a President do not know the cost of the redenomination exercise", the President stated, adding that, “Up till today, no Ghanaian knows the cost of the redenomination exercise and the same people come and say someone is incompetent. When you redenominated the cedi how much did it cost us? Simple things like these you cannot tell us and you have the nerve to come and talk about corruption. Look in the mirror and look at yourselves".
But for Mr Kwarteng, President Mahama's insinuations against Dr Bawumia were not necessary since the information on the cost redenomination had been made available as far back as November, 2007.
Speaking on Asempa FM's Ekosii Sen on Wednesday, he said, "if President Mahama wanted to know what happened with the redenomination, he would have known because the documents are available" and wasted his time on this one instead of finding solutions to Ghana's problems, adding "I'm beginning to accept the assertion that the president and his appointees do not read".
According to him, if President Mahama presides over a government which awards contracts without considering value for money for Ghanaians and he is being criticised, he should concentrate on correcting that anomaly rather than casting such insinuations against Dr Bawumia.
"Instead of aiming to tarnish the image of this brilliant guy who could well be your younger brother, you should be listening to his counsel", he stated.
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