The deputy Ashanti regional secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Mr Kwame Zu has described Ghana’s minority in parliament as “a loud and unproductive” fold who “tread more on expediency than caution”.
Mr Zu was commenting on the minority’s brawl over the propriety of the President’s brother offering personnel to dredge the Korle lagoon and the Odo River at no cost to the state.
Ibrahim Mahama; brother of President John Dramani Mahama and Chief Executive officer of construction firm Engineers and Planners, secured an informal agreement from the Local Government Ministry and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, to offer technical support to dredge the main water channels that have been linked to the June third twin disaster.
According to the tenets of the contract, state owned excavators, payloaders and bulldozers would be fuelled by government while Mr Ibrahim Mahama’s workers operate the machines pro bono.
However the Minority spokesperson on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu, has alleged some dodgy deals insisting that Ibrahim Mahama, has transferred some of the state’s earth moving machines for use in his private construction sites specifically at Tafo and Klagon.
Speaking to Ultimate fm’s Prince Minka on the Ultimate Breakfast on Monday, Mr Zu threw a caution to the minority to stop what he described as intent “to destroy people who have gained reputation and who have built solid businesses whom the country should be promoting.”
Mr Zu chided the Minority for throwing Ghanaians in to “a discussion of an unproductivity of an opposition where allegations are peddled without substantiation.”
“That has been the safe haven of everybody who is choosing to do mere and absolute mischief. We have a very unproductive and loud opposition for which reason we are suffering as a country,” he ranted.
He asked the detractors to avert their minds to the fact that a philanthropist had offered his services to the state on a mission that would have required government to contract a firm to be paid from the nation’s coffers.
“Government has seen the need to dredge the Odo River. A philanthropist has decided to release his technicians for free to go and deliver for which we are not in any contractual agreement with the company. What else are we looking for,” he questioned.
He advised the honourable member of parliament of Bekwai, to show evidence of that equipment he found on the private construction sight of Mr Ibrahim if he means to perform his watchdog role of keeping government on its toes.
Meanwhile, the deputy minister of Local Governance and Rural Development Nii Lantey Vanderpuye who spoke earlier on the Ultimate Breakfast, described the brouhaha about the development as a “malicious intent to run down government in the eyes of the public.”
He questioned why the minority singled out the voluntary work of E&P while entities like the Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA) also offered to clear the debri on the streets of Accra and the Kwame Nkrumah Circle without such questions.
He emphasized that quantifying the kind of work that the contractor had done; government would not have had that money to pay for the same work at commercial rate.
Taking a swipe at the opposition, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye noted that the claims of Ibrahim Mahama using the equipment for his private gain are “factually incorrect, malicious and unfortunate.”
“The opposition are not doing so with a patriotic heart. They are not saying it because they think about Ghana. It is all about trying to find some demon in the work that E&P are doing just because it is the president’s brother”
He said Mr Ibrahim’s offer came in handy as per the contract government had with the supplier of the equipment, “unless an operator was well trained, and qualified enough to man those equipments, the supplier owed government no liability to any damage of the equipment.”
