Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, the Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper has raised critical questions as to who exactly contracted DK Poison to give the US$45,000 loan to Ghana.
Describing the whole deal under Col. Isaac Kutu Acheampong’s regime as “ridiculous and absurdity of the highest order”, Baako Jr. indicated that the state of Ghana sank so low in this regard.
“DK Poison fought so hard to win the title and money to lift the image of Ghana. He was coming back into the country to perhaps invest his hard-earned money…if indeed the state of Ghana was able to contract the boxer for his money…what at all was happening?” he asked on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo.
Kweku Baako Jr. indicated that with all the documents he has on the Acheampong regime, “nowhere was this 45,000 dollars mentioned”.
“So, was it some private job somebody was doing using the name of the republic […]. What was the state going to buy with that $45,000…to buy mackerel, how?” disturbed Baako wondered.
He suggested the pundits should exercise restraint in their comments on the US$45,000 compassionate payment in order to not appear insensitive to the legendary boxer and his family.
Shocked Baako had further questions, “The state of Ghana contracted a $45,000 loan from a boxer to do what? What happened to Nkrumah’s Ghana?……44 years down the line, the Republic of Ghana, the state of Ghana must show compassion and dole out that money. Who did that? Who contracted that […]? Was the loans Act not in force?….. Would it not [have been] so ridiculous for the state of Ghana even under the bankrupt military dictatorship of Acheampong to go so low and take a loan from one individual Ghanaian who is just a boxer and not a businessman or multimillionaire?”
Baako observed that the loan is not captured in the list of loans that were subjected to public scrutiny by the succeeding Akuffo military regime which was looking for something to pin on Acheampong but to no avail.
As a nation are we very proud of ourselves, my goodness what a disaster?” Baako intoned.
D.K Poison, the first-ever Ghanaian boxer to win an international title, had been chasing the money for all this while but President Akufo-Addo on Tuesday gave an order to the Ministry of Finance to repay the loan.
D.K. Poison said that he earned a purse of $75,000 from an international bout but was paid an amount of 34,000 old cedis, through a transfer at the then Barclays Bank, which was equivalent to $30,000 at the time.
The loan to Col. I.K. Acheampong’s administration was advanced purely on a gentleman’s agreement basis with officials of the then military administration way back in Tokyo, Japan where D.K. Poison won his second title defence against Shigefumi Fukuyama.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com