Dr. Tony Aidoo, Director of Government Policy Monitoring and Evaluation is cautioning politicians particularly those holding ministerial posts to be wary of public and civil servants with whom they work if they are not to fall victim to their machinations.
He is appalled that the Auditor General’s office has kept quiet all the while that the controversy over the payment of a judgment debt to businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome has raged, only for the Auditor General to turn round late in the day and admit to a mistake.
Dr. Tony Aidoo, who was speaking to Radio Gold Friday morning questioned how the Auditor General could have put in a report to Parliament for 2010, information that relates to 2011 and to what extent he should have kept quiet over the past three weeks or so when the controversy has raged over the amount of money paid to Woyome?”
He said the instant case, and a similar misreporting of figures by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice in 1995 that led to the needless maligning of a public figure should provide a useful lesson to politicians “especially ministers of state to be wary of the public and civil servants who are working with them because on their blind side, they will bury you.
“These people, whenever there is a change of government, their jobs are assured. When there is a change of government, you the politician will go home.”
He said for three years his office has been chasing ministers of state fruitlessly for information to help them operate and avoid situations where civil servants will operate on their blind side but they have not given “a damn”, pointing out that “it’s a lesson” and “should be a lesson to them.”
He said in 1995 when Col. (Retd) E.M. Osei-Wusu and others were hauled before CHRAJ to be probed for their means of acquiring so-called ‘mansions’, CHRAJ submitted a report full of mistakes regarding Col. Osei-Wusu’s investments and earnings, and based upon which it concluded he could not have acquired a property, and when the then Provisional National Defence Council administration led by President Rawlings wrote a white paper to reject the findings of CHRAJ, it became the reference point for persons who disregarded the shortcomings of the report.
“Today, every time there is a controversy about corruption and so on, people constantly make reference to how the PNDC then issued a white paper whitewashing the report and ignoring the recommendations of the CHRAJ without attention to those mistakes that were made by persons entrusted with the responsibility of delving into matters and bringing out the facts. The same situation obviously applies to this report by the Auditor General regarding the amount of money that was paid to Woyome in 2010…”