Spokesperson for former President John Kufuor, Frank Agyekum, has called on former President Rawlings to state what the $2 million he confessed to receiving from a former Nigerian president was used for.
“If former President Rawlings has come out to say that he did take the money, the $2 million, it is for us to start asking questions like what happened to the money,” Mr. Agyekum said on Eyewitness News.
Mr. Rawlings, while speaking to the Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria, admitted to receiving $2 million from the President of Nigeria in 1998, Sani Abacha.
Reports about the money were rife in 1998, and a former Member of Parliament for New Juabeng North, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, was at the forefront of calls for a probe into the allegations.
But following Mr. Rawlings’ confession, Mr. Owusu Agyeman has now said it should warrant forgiveness from Ghanaians.
The confession notwithstanding, Mr Agyekum has noted that though Mr. Rawlings confessed to receiving the money, he has not disclosed to Ghanaians what the money was used for.
“How was the money accounted for because as far as I am concerned, I have never heard it being accounted for to the state and by the state and we don’t know what happened to the money.”
Ghanaians should demand answers
Ghanaians should also be more interested in what became of the $2 million dollars and demand answers from Mr. Rawlings according to Mr. Agyekum.
“I think it is for all of us to start asking questions as to how the money came to be and the purposes for which it was used. It is not just for President Kufuor to ask those questions… we should know why he took the money, what use the money was put to and whether the state was informed and accounted to,” he said.
Mr. Agyekum further challenged Mr. Rawlings to live up to his anti-corruption rhetoric by coming clean on what the money was used for.
“He [Rawlings] is forever talking about integrity, about transparency, about accountability. I think this is the time that he should show the transparency and the accountability and the integrity so that we know what happened to this money.”
