Merbank Fortiz Saga: Gen Mosquito Asks NPP Five Questions

General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah wants New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentarians to answer five questions on the controversial sale of Merchant Bank to Fortiz. Answers to the questions, which he says the public eagerly awaits, would help put the Merchant Bank issue to rest. 1. Since we cannot be dealing with the symptoms of the disease without bothering about the cause, the first question that comes up is, how did Merchant Bank get to its current predicament? 2. Is it in the best interest of workers of Ghana and the nation at large for SSNIT not to do anything about the bank (i.e. to maintain the status quo)? 3. If not, is there a better way of dealing with the bank than that which is contained in the Fortis Deal? 4. Were the representatives of workers (contributors of SSNIT) involved in all the Board decisions of SSNIT on the Merchant Bank issue? 5. Finally (and the main reason why the leadership of NDC got interested in this debate) Has there been any conflict of interest on the part of President Mahama, President Mills or any other NDC government official in the granting, disbursement or recovery effort of Merchant Bank of any Loan to Engineers and Planners or any of the other leading loan defaulters? The questions by Asiedu Nketiah, otherwise called General Mosquito, are contained in a press statement he issued in which he expresses disappointment at what he says was a careful avoidance by the NPP caucus in parliament to take up a challenge he had thrown to them. �When I was told that the NPP Minority was going to address a Press Conference I was excited because I thought the NPP had taken up the challenge thrown at them when I invited anyone of them who had any credible information to contradict the positions that canvassed about the sale of the Merchant Bank during my interview on ASEMPA FM�S EKOSII SEN program on Wednesday 8th January, to make same public so that we could engage in a constructive debate over the issues at stake.� He said rather than tackle the issue; the Minority in Parliament resorted to attacking the Speaker of Parliament. �Anybody who knows NPP as I do will agree with me that the whole purpose of the Minority NPP�s press conference on Thursday was to deliberately attack the Speaker of Parliament Rt. Hon. Doe Adjaho so that the focus of the debate would shift to whether or not the perpetrators should be hauled to the Privileges Committee of Parliament.�