Things are beginning to emerge ahead of the December 17 National Delegates Congress of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), whose 3rd National Vice Chairman, Alhaji Said Sinare, has made some serious allegations against the outgoing General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah.
The allegation, the reactions and the replies, are portraying some of the NDC national executives as busily seeking their parochial and selfish interests, rather than a collective desire for the rank and file of the party and Ghanaians for that matter.
Alhaji Sinare, who was addressing some grassroots members of the party in the presence of other national executives, including the party’s chairman, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, said that Asiedu Nketiah, forced the NDC’s application for the collection of dues on the Functional Executive Committee (FEC).
Sinare’s claims, have caused a press statement to be issued by a spokesperson for the outgoing General Secretary of the NDC, Eric Edem Agbana in which he stated that “neither Johnson Asiedu Nketiah nor his son, has an interest in NDC’s electronic payment platform provider”.
But shortly Barbara Serwaa Asamoah, the NDC Deputy General Secretary in-charge of Finance and administration, also issued a counter statement from Eric Edem Agbana, who is the deputy National Youth Organiser
According to him, the company that manages the applications keeps 20 per cent of all the revenues it collects from the party, including dues.
“The party’s app that you pay your dues, nominations (and) filing fee through, it wasn’t FEC that chose the company. He (Asiedu Nketiah) went sole-sourcing, he chose it by himself. He brought the company onto FEC, whether they liked it or not. He was imposing it as a dictator.
“That company, do you the commission it takes, 20 percent. So all the dues that you have paid, filing fees and or that, 20 percent of it is for the person who brought that app,” he said
“Meanwhile, we had someone that was offering the application free of charge, and we kicked that person out,” the NDC vice chairman added.
The viral video was shared by the former general secretary of the party, Samuel Koku Anyidoho, on Twitter with the caption “The ugly truth about the perfidious Asiedu-Nketiah is now coming out. I have said it ooo; if we make a big mistake and allow him to become Chairman and Leader, we should forget about 2024.”
Edem Agbana, who identified himself as the spokesperson for the Johnson Asiedu Nketiah Campaign, in his statement issued yesterday, said the campaign “has taken note of yet another series of lies and attacks on his character and person by National Chairman of the NDC and his campaign team”.
“While we have refused to comment on the consistent attacks and lies in the past, we have noted the daily lies and the recent one by a National Vice Chairman Said Sinare, claiming among others that the General Secretary, single handedly picked a company and forced it on the Party to provide an electronic payment platform.
“We wish to advice that in the supreme interest of our party, all aspirants stick to a campaign of facts and truths, devoid of hatred.
“I am directed by Johnson Asiedu Nketiah to respond to the lies of Said Sinare and the National Chairman as follows:
“1. Following a decision by the party to set up an electronic payment platform, Deputy General Secretary Barbara Asamoah was tasked to invite proposals from interested companies, and she was charged to also find out for colleague FEC members if they know any firms with the required Fintech experience to submit their bids.
“2. Madam Asamoah is the one who received and submitted a shortlist of the bids she received to a committee, which was put together to handle Procurements, and chaired by General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia.
“3. Membership of the Committee included: Peter Boamah Otokunor- Deputy General Secretary; Barbara Asamoah- Deputy General Secretary; Joshua Akamba- National Organiser; Vida Addae- Deputy National Treasurer; Attah Issah- Accountant and Emmanuel Zumakpeh- Director of Administration.
“4. At the meetings of the Committee, Dr. George Atta Boateng was invited as a consultant to assist with selecting the successful bid for the project.
“5. After the review meeting, Madam Barbara Asamoah was the one asked to meet separately with Dr. Atta Boateng to further review and report to the Committee.
“6. The Consultant subsequently recommended that the shortlisted companies should submit samples of their proposed work and make presentations to the Committee.
“7. The Committee after reviewing the reports made its recommendations and submitted to the General Secretary. It must be pointed out that the General Secretary was not present for these review meetings with the shortlisted companies.
“8. It was after the report was presented to the General Secretary that he called for a due diligence to be conducted on the companies.
“9. It was found after the due diligence that one of the shortlisted entities was owned by an active senior official of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). How on earth could the NDC have allowed an NPP official to oversee the collection of NDC funds? No way!
“10. The other entity is owned by a member of the NDC and who has a security background.
“11. The General Secretary therefore submitted the (Procurement) Committee’s final recommendation to the Functional Executive Committee (FEC).
“12. After FEC’s approval, the Committee met with the Party’s Finance Committee chaired by Mr. Kwame Peprah, who was in charge and negotiated the charges with the selected entity. The Consultant, Dr. Atta Boateng, was also in this meeting to bring his expert knowledge to the proceedings. Also present at this meeting were Barbara Asamoah, Peter Otokunor, Accountant and General Secretary.
“13. The agreed charges with the selected entity and negotiated by the Finance committee chaired by Mr. Peprah was 18%, and not 20%.
“14. Following the Finance Committee’s negotiations, the draft agreement was submitted to the Party’s Legal Committee for review before signing in July 2022.
“15. We want to emphasise that, at all times, it was Barbara Asamoah who received the bids, and submitted the shortlisted entities submitted to the Party’s committee for consideration.
“16. Therefore, the claims by the National Vice Chairman, in the presence of the National Chairman that Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah single handedly picked and dictated to FEC on the selected company are false and should be completely disregarded.
“17. We note that another member of the Ofosu Ampofo campaign team, Oti Bless of Nkwanta, had also claimed that Mr Asiedu Nketia and his son are the owners of the said company, and are paying themselves 38% in charges.
“18. For the record, neither the General Secretary nor his son has any interest or shareholding in the company selected and offered the contract to provide the platform.
“19. We can campaign for our preferred candidates without resorting to outright falsehoods and character assassination, which are attributes that are unbecoming of persons seeking to lead the NDC.
“20. I am directed by ‘General’ Johnson Asiedu Nketiah to remind all his supporters and the generality of the NDC fraternity that despite the vitriolic attacks on him, and his person by his opposing contestant, we should all continue to focus on the issues, campaign for him for a dynamic, strategic, trustworthy, and fearless National Chairman for Victory 2024.
“21. I am also directed to encourage the incumbent National Chairman to sanitise his campaign in the best interest of the NDC.
But shortly after statement from theJohnson Asiedu Nketiah Campaign,Ms. Asamoah also released a statement saying“my attention has been drawn to a publication issued by Edem Agbana purporting that I was involved in the selection of the company in charge of the collection of party dues, nomination forms fees and filing fees.
“I decline this assertion emphatically and inclined to put out the facts as regarding the subject matter.
“I have been a lead advocate championing a modernized electronic payment system for the past two years as a measure to resource the party adequately. I traveled around the country to educate party members about the benefits of the electronic payment system.
“I have provided the company registration details of the two companies that submitted their bids to me for anybody to check whether they have any links to any NPP bigwigs, because when they were submitted to me, I did the necessary background checks and there were no indications whatsoever that they were linked to any NPP bigwig.
“The next time Edem Agbana is releasing such press statements, he should check the accuracy of the information he puts out before he tries to create any impression that I had anything to do with the company that won the bid. Our fidelity to the truth must not shift with the advent of internal competition.
Below is Ms Asamoah’s statement
*RE: Neither Johnson Asiedu Nketiah nor his son has an interest in NDC’s electronic payment platform provider.*
My attention has been drawn to a publication issued by Edem Agbana, purporting that I was involved in the selection of the company in charge of the collection of party dues, nomination forms fees and filing fees.
I decline this assertion emphatically and inclined to put out the facts as regarding the subject matter.
I have been a lead advocate championing a modernized electronic payment system for the past two years as a measure to resource the party adequately. I traveled around the country to educate party members about the benefits of the electronic payment system.
Yet I have been silent about issues leading to the selection of the vendor because I do not want the rank and file of the party to lose confidence in the system knowing the amount of energy I put into the establishment of the party’s electronic payment system.
I do not want to be dragged into anything about internal party acrimony, especially as regards recent controversies about the vendor awarded the contract.
We have a responsibility to protect this party’s image and lead well in the management of information meant for internal purposes.
Since it is Edem Agbana who issued this statement, I will assume that he issued it without having adequate information, because at no point was I asked to meet Dr Atta Boateng to assist in the selection of companies for the project.
As confirmed by the disclaimer issued by the Director of Administrations, Mr Emmanuel Zumakpe, through a letter issued under his hand on Thursday, November 17, 2022, three (3) companies submitted their bids. Out of these three, only two of the companies submitted their bids to me and they were;
a) Global icon Agency limited with company registration number CS199352013, submitted by Daniel Austin who is the son of the former DCE of KEEA, Thomas Austin Ankomah, from 1991 to 2000. Daniel Austin was a parliamentary aspirant on the ticket of the NDC at KEEA in the 202O NDC parliamentary primaries and at the time the Regional Director of I.T. in the Central region. It must be placed on record that he was willing to offer the software and its services at zero cost to the party.
b) ELEKSTECHIQ limited company with registration number CS099350722, submitted by Nana Grant, a known NDC member who lives in Canada and the son of Nana Addo Aikins, PNDC tribunal chairman from Akropong constituency.
However, the third company, RX-Zone Technologies, which eventually won the bid submitted their proposal to Peter Boamah Otokunor, therefore I do not have any information on that company.
At the said meeting with Dr Atta Boateng, who was invited to help evaluate the proposals by the three companies with his technical background, I handed over the two proposals that came to me for the evaluation.
The assertion that, I was asked to meet with Dr Atta Boateng separately to further review and report to the committee, is a complete falsehood.
I was never invited to any other meeting again until I was invited to a finance committee meeting in the office of the former chief of staff, Hon. Julius Debrah, where the company, RX-Zone Technologies, had already been selected by a means I am not in known of did a presentation on how the app was going to operate.
I have provided the company registration details of the two companies that submitted their bids to me for anybody to check whether they have any links to any NPP bigwigs, because when they were submitted to me, I did the necessary background checks and there were no indications whatsoever that they were linked to any NPP bigwig.
The next time Edem Agbana, is releasing such press statements, he should check the accuracy of the information he puts out before he tries to create any impression that I had anything to do with the company that won the bid. Our fidelity to the truth must not shift with the advent of internal competition.
Signed
……………………………………
Barbara Serwaa Asamoah
(Deputy General Secretary-Fin. and admin)
