Alhaji Mohamed Mumuni

THE Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, has pledged to resign his position should it be proven that he has stolen “a single pesewa of the taxpayer’s money”.
He said he was not only prepared to resign from his present position but that he would also offer himself for prosecution and suffer any penalties prescribed by law.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, Alhaji Mumuni declared, “Should it be shown or proven that I, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, have stolen a single pesewa of the taxpayer’s money or taken a personal benefit, whether directly or indirectly, or been corrupt or abused my office or been guilty of wrongdoing, I am prepared not only to resign from my present appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration but I will also offer myself for prosecution and suffer any penalties prescribed by law.”
He was responding to calls by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and a pressure group, the Alliance for Accountable Government (AFAG), for him to resign his position following the dismissal of his defamation suit against the Daily Guide newspaper and three others by an Accra High Court.
Alhaji Mumuni reiterated the fact that he had never sighted any Auditor-General’s report signed or authenticated by the Auditor-General or on his behalf, neither could the Appointments Committee of Parliament show him a copy or even vouch for the existence of any such report.
He said by the requirements of Article 187, Section 23 (1) of the Audit Service Act, Act 584, the Auditor-General’s report was published only when it had been presented to the Speaker of Parliament and laid before Parliament, saying that no such report had been so laid in Parliament up to date.
He noted that by customs, practices and usage of auditors, persons who were subjects of audit inspections were informed of the fact and allowed to participate in same.
According to him, until the Daily Guide started serialising a purported audit report on him, “I never had the slightest hint that I was the subject of an audit inspection”.
Alhaji Mumuni explained that he was also never given the opportunity to contradict or explain anything alleged against him by the so-called auditors, stressing that “this is obviously contrary to the elementary rules of natural justice”.
The minister stated that the first time he became aware of a forensic audit report on him by Messrs Baffour Awuah & Associates was on May 4, 2004 when the Daily Guide started serialising the draft, which continued on May 6, 18 and 21, 2004.
He said he wrote to the then Minister of Manpower Development, Mr Yaw Barimah, for copies of specified documents and correspondence, which the minister provided under the cover of his letter.
“Armed with these documents which, in the report, the auditors said were not available or never even existed, I called a press conference here in this very hall on May 19, 2004. I addressed the media and in the process debunked the allegations against me and demonstrated that in so far as it related to me, the so-called audit report was a complete fabrication,” he added.
Surprisingly, he said, the very night of the press conference, Mr Barimah’s office was burgled and the CPU to his computer and back-ups were stolen.
Alhaji Mumuni said the case was still being investigated by the Ministries Police.
He said he filed a civil suit at the High Court, claiming damages for defamation of character arising from the libellous words contained in the Daily Guide publications and also obtained an interim injunction against the defendants, restraining them from re-publishing, repeating or publishing similar words against him.
He said in spite of the subsistence of the injunction, the auditors purported to finalise the audit report in September 2004, a conduct which he said was clearly in contempt of the court.
Alhaji Mumuni said the dismissal of his claim for damages against the defendants did not mean that he had been found guilty of any criminal charge.
“I have never been charged with any criminal conduct before a court of law, nor has any charge been brought against me before the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ),” he said.
The minister drew the attention of the media to the fact that it was the same auditors, Baffour Awuah & Associates, who conducted forensic audits involving other NDC officials such as Messrs Dan Abodakpi, Kwame Peprah, Ibrahim Adam and Dr Ato Quarshie.
“During Mr Abodakpi’s trial, it emerged that it was the then National Security Co-ordinator who had appointed Baffour Awuah & Associates to conduct the so-called audit. This firm was handpicked to do political hatchet jobs,” he alleged.
Alhaji Mumuni said during Mr Abodakpi’s trial, “the Auditor-General claimed that the audit had been authorised by him to give the cover of his office to what had clearly been initiated by the National Security Co-ordinator’s office”.
He said the misuse of the audit function of the Auditor-General for purely political purposes over the past eight years had been remarkable and cited the cases against the Majority Leader, Mr Alban Bagbin, Mr Tsatsu Tsikata and Mr Kwesi Pratt, the publisher of a privately owned newspaper, although its accounts were outside the purview of the Auditor-General, as well as queries against the Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, when he raised issue with the NPP government regarding its attempt to control the procurement processes of the EC.
The minister said an audit report on the 31st December Women’s Movement was also conducted by the Auditor-General which was used in criminal proceedings which were subsequently discontinued.
He said the former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, instituted an action against the Daily Guide for publishing those allegations, saying the matter was currently at the Court of Appeal, after an unsuccessful attempt at the High Court.