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Press Release
NPP, December 26, 2011
NPP QUESTIONS MILLS’ URGENT X’MAS TRIP TO
US
The New Patriotic Party has scoffed at the official reason
given by the Castle for the President’s sudden trip to the
United States on Christmas Eve.
Speaking exclusively to the New Statesman on Christmas Day,
Nana Akomea, the Communications Director of the opposition
party, said, “The President should stop kidding with
Ghanaians and tell us the truth. This Christmas meeting with
US investors sounds like a story from the North Pole.”
The NPP suspects there could be more to this emergency visit
than the Castle is willing to share with Ghanaians,
“especially, when the President gave no prior public notice
of this Christmas trip when he returned from America a week
ago,” Nana Akomea said.
He said, “the NPP expected the President to spend, at least,
the most important day on the Christian calendar here at
home because even the New York Stock Exchange, the citadel
of capitalism, does not operate on Christmas day.”
President John Evans Atta Mills left the country for the
United States on a nine-day official visit on December 9,
exactly a week after he returned from a month’s trip to
North America, including a two-week holiday in the US.
Briefing journalists at the Kotoka International Airport
last Saturday night, Mr. Koku Anyidoho, Director of
communications at the Presidency, said President Mills was
returning to America to meet with some investors as a run-up
to his recent visit to the New York Stock Exchange.
He said a number of investors in the US had lined up to meet
President Mills after his visit to the NYSE but he had to
come home.
But, the NPP is not at all convinced. “The President, a
professed Christian, chose Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
to leave Ghana and travel to a Christian country to visit
so-called investors. What kind of investors does he plan to
meet? Santa Claus?” Nana Akomea said.
“We find the timing of this trip very strange. Is the
President saying that US investors don’t celebrate
Christmas?”
The NPP further stated that the President returned from his
previous American trip without being able to “mention one
specific investment deal he was able to strike whilst over
there. He is returning to the US without any specific
programme that he can confidently share with Ghanaians.”
The NPP Communications Director added, “Perhaps, it would
not have raised such eyebrows if these frequent air miles
were for trips to China, where we all know of multi-billion
dollar agreements being negotiated. Are these American trips
not for something else that they are reluctant to share?”
The Castle, he said, “must come clean on these US trips. Two
official holidays in consecutive years to the US and now
choosing the Christmas season of all periods to go on an
investment drive in the US is most doubtful. We need more
details than what Mr Anyidoho is willing to reveal.”
Mr. Anyidoho said on Saturday, “The President will use this
opportunity especially in this festive season and to sort
out some things to wrap up the action year.”
But Akomea jeered, “If Action Year is the measure and if
that is anything to go by then there would surely be no
serious investor action on this US trip. What are the some
things the President is going to sort out to wrap up his
action year?”
He stressed, “In fact, it seems to us the President of the
Republic only returned to Accra to tell us he was not dead
and put up that embarrassing defence for Alfred Woyome, the
NDC financier who was given GH¢58 million of our money as
compensation for a breach of a contract he himself admits to
not having with government, only for the President to return
to the US to continue with whatever it was that he was doing
there.”
The president is expected back on January 2, 2012.
--
NPP Communications Directorate
NPP Headquarters, Asylum Down. Accra.
Dep. Director: Curtis Perry K. Okudzeto
(024-9679008)
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