The National Democratic Congress says it cannot be held responsible for the alleged diversion of part of $175m loan facility to conduct research into the popularity of the John Mahama administration ahead of the 2016 elections.
National Organiser of the party Kofi Adams told Joy News at no point did the party commission the then Deputy Health Minister Rojo Mettle Nunoo to conduct any research for the party.
He added the party was also not aware of any research conducted by Mr Nunoo.
His comments contradict that of the head of research for the party Dr William Ahadzie who admitted that Mr Nunoo officially made a presentation of the outcome of the research to the party ahead of the election.
Mr Ahadzie was quick to add though, that the party was at the time only interested in the “findings of the research and not the funding source.”
He also indicated that if it can be established that the election-related research was conducted with monies from a loan facility meant to be used to develop health infrastructure then that will be a misappropriation of funds.
Background
Joy News investigation by Kwetey Nartey suggests the erstwhile NDC government diverted $6million out of some $175million meant to build hospitals into conducting an election-related research to test the popularity of John Mahama, the then president.
The research was a sub-contract awarded to British infrastructure company NMS for the construction of seven district hospitals and an integrated IT system.
The research was conducted by UK-based SCL Social, the mother company of Cambridge Analytica.
SCL Social was paid $6 million to undertake a nationwide survey to provide data for the proper planning of the healthcare needs of Ghana.
According to the contract signed by the government of Ghana and NMS, Rojo Mettle-Nunoo was the head of the Project Steering Committee.
Mr Mettle-Nunoo, who was an administrator of the Mahama campaign team admitted knowing SCL Social and confirmed the crucial campaign intelligence was gathered through research.
Even though Joy FM has documents backing claims of diversion of the amount, Mr Nunoo said there was no diversion.
Before the report of this investigation was made public, the former Deputy Health Minister had, in an interview, told Joy News’ Gifty Andoh Appiah that the outcome of the election related research was brought to the attention of the then president but he and his team refused to act leading to the party’s defeat.
But the party’s National Organiser Kofi Adams has introduced a new twist to the whole controversy.
“The party has two national structures it works with, the Functional Executive Committee and the National Executive Committee. None of these structures received any report whatsoever or referenced report here in your story from Rojo Mettle Nunoo.
So it is very clear that no such presentation was done to either the functional executive committee or the national executive committee.
“We also, as a party did not commission a team either that included Rojo Mettle Nunoo or a foreign team to do any research for us. That also did not happen.
Then as a campaign that I coordinated for 2016, there was no such arrangement with any group to do any research for us. We did not do any such thing.
He however stated that as part of a health facility project there was the need for research to be done for the party and if Rojo Mettle Nunooo decided to do it then fine but the party did not receive any report whatsoever.
Source:Myjoyonline.com