Sophia Akuffo has accused the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration of running down state institutions and distribute them amongst its cronies afterwards.
She says there is no justification for the attempt to sell off the SSNIT hotels to a government official looking at the conflict of interest nature of the matter.
According to the former Chief Justice, although government defended the deal and indicated there was no conflict of interest associated with it, any reasonable man ought to know there was everything wrong with the transaction.
In a yet to be aired interview with Alfred Ocansey on Ghana Tonight on TV3 Thursday, July 25, 2024, Madam Akuffo stated that she would have objected to the transaction if her consent had been sought.
When Alfred Ocansey maintained that SSNIT justified the attempt to sell the hotels, she retorted that: “Oh, don’t mind them. Of course they will justify it because they have run down the hotels and just like in the public sector, a lot of public properties have been run down just so that the values will be run down and always at the end of some cycle or the other, they do sweetheart deals and do distributions among themselves.”
She continued that “SSNIT can say I have defamed them, I don’t care. Oh, definitely not” also saying that “I didn’t think it was in my interest” when told the deal was being made in the interest of Ghanaians, adding that “and if they had come to ask me, I would have said no. Is that the only person who can buy these shares of SSNIT?”
Her comments come on the back of the recent attempt by the government to sell off the Social Security and National Insurance Trust’s (SSNIT) 60 per cent shares in some four hotels to a government official.
Until a revelation by the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, which forced Organised Labour to go on strike for government to rescind the decision, the four hotels would have been sold to the Minister of Agriculture, Bryan Abbey Acheampong.
Source:onuaonline.com