STATEMENT ON HARRASSMENT AND MALICIOUS PROSECUTION OF NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC

CONGRESS (NDC) FUNCTIONARIES

The National Democratic Congress has learned of a news item in which the Akufo Addo government
is reported to have indicated the commencement of the trial of the immediate past Chief Executive
Officer of COCOBOD, Dr Stephen Kwabena Opuni and one Alhaji Seidu Agongo in the coming days.

We wish ab initio, to place on record, our total belief in the rule of law and the need to fight
corruption and wrong doing in public office. We have offered indisputable proof of this by becoming
the only governing party in the history of the fourth republic to successfully prosecute its own
member.

We have taken note of the populists and prejudicial conduct of the Akufo Addo government and the
Attorney General in the Opuni matter through the publication of twenty-seven charges against him
and Alhaji Agongo in the media.

It is our position that the publication of the charges even at a time when Dr Opuni and his counsel
had not been informed of the development, runs contrary to decent and professional conduct and
we condemn same in the strongest possible terms.

We are aware that the announcement of the commencement of the trial and the publication of the
charges were deliberately done to achieve two objectives.

The first was to divert attention from the public outrage that greeted three major corruption
scandals that broke out last week under the Akufo Addo government. We refer to the GHS 23million
oil corruption scandal at BOST, the GHS 28 million used car scandal at MASLOC and the nepotistic
award of eleven contracts in a single day to a sister-in-law of the NLA CEO.

The second was to deliberately prejudice the outcome of the trial, demonize Dr Opuni and prepare
the grounds for the public to expect only one outcome after the trial. This in turn derives from a
desperate desire to justify the many malicious falsehoods told about Dr Opuni in particular and the
NDC government in general in the run up to the 2016 elections and its immediate aftermath.

We have always been aware that the Akufo Addo government, in light of its knowledge that it
cannot fulfil the legion of utopian campaign promises made to Ghanaians, has devised a scheme to
use malicious prosecutions of NDC functionaries to curry favour with the electorate in the hope that
a false notion of anti-corruption would form the basis of their re-election in 2020.

We had however never thought that such crudeness and blatant disregard for the rights of our
members would be the weapons of choice in this political vendetta. We have been apprised of
countless instances of harassment, intimidation, lawlessness and abuse of processes suffered by our
members under the guise of investigations into alleged wrongdoing by various state bodies.

We have also observed the sanctimonious and hypocritical sermons on corruption by President
Akufo Addo and his never-ending promises of prosecutions. It is obvious that his notion of fighting
corruption is limited to the unjust pursuit and witch-hunt of political opponents while turning a blind
eye to massive corruption right under his nose by his appointees.
His practice of obscene nepotism and cronyism through the appointment of scores of relatives,
known friends and business partners into government, the allocation of juicy contracts to them and
his total inaction in the face of mounting evidence of corruption in his government, completely
expose his duplicity on the matter.

We wish to make clear, that contrary to the Akufo Addo government’s misguided belief that the
maltreatment of our members, hasty media trials and the peddling of outrageous falsehoods against
them will meet with a docile party, we will take every reasonable step to assert the innocence of our
members and insist on respect for their fundamental human rights.

We once again reiterate our commitment to the fight against corruption and support for due process
in the attainment of same. That commitment and support does not extend to malicious trials and
politically motivated harassment.

We demand fair and lawful treatment for all our members and an immediate end to harassment
from the various investigative bodies.

We also demand fairness in the judicial process and it is our expectation that historical hostility to
the NDC, whether real or perceived, will play no role in the determination of all cases and that only
the facts of each case, the position of the law and the objective assessment of same will inform any
outcome.

Johnson Asiedu Nketiah

General Secretary