|
Press Release
March 17, 2010
Nana-Addo denies hounding Betty Mould Iddrisu out of Office
The Office of Nana Akufo-Addo has received with disappointment,
reports that the Attorney-General, Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu,
asserted on Radio Gold on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 that he was
instrumental in her resignation from the office of the
Attorney-General. The Office of Nana Akufo-Addo wishes to place
on record that this is an unfortunate, even if she sees it as a
convenience, lie.
Far from hounding her out of office, not only did she continue
to act as Head of the International Law Division during the
entire two-year period of his tenure as Attorney-General, Nana
Akufo-Addo actually left the current Attorney-General behind at
the Attorney-General’s Office when he left in March 2003 to take
up his new responsibilities as Foreign Minister. Subsequently,
he accepted her request for a reference letter to support her
application for an international job. In fact, he gave her a
glowing reference because he was satisfied about her competence
and fitness for the job.
According to the Attorney-General’s own CV, she worked with
“Ghana’s Ministry of Justice from 1978 until her appointment at
the Commonwealth Secretariat in November 2003. At the Justice
Ministry, she headed the Industrial Property Law Division and
was later appointed Ghana’s Copyright Administrator before
leaving for the Commonwealth job, after serving as Head of the
Ministry’s International Law Division.”
On Radio Gold’s 60 Minutes programme, the Attorney-General is
reported to have claimed that ‘Nana Akufo-Addo muscled her out
of office on the grounds that she was “too prominent a member of
the NDC”. And, according to her, “What happened was
unpardonable”, causing unimaginable pain to her and her family.’
When Nana Akufo-Addo was appointed by the then President of the
Republic, His Excellency J. A. Kufuor, as Attorney-General in
2001, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, then head of the International
Law Division, was among the complement of staff he met at the
Office of the Attorney General.
It was common knowledge that Mrs. Mould Iddrisu was the wife of
the former Defence Minister in the previous NDC administration,
Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu. This fact led to some lobbying from some
quarters for her to be reassigned to another portfolio within
the civil service.
Nana Akufo-Addo resisted such calls and defended his decision to
maintain her at post on the ground that he had no reason to
believe that her political affiliation was affecting either her
professional judgment or her competence. Indeed, Mrs. Mould
Iddrisu was given additional duties in charge of the
de-confiscation of assets.
Unlike the culture of partisan cleansing that competent
Ghanaians in the public service have experienced under the
current Mills administration, Nana Akufo-Addo stood firm to his
principles that insofar as the Constitution of the Republic gave
every Ghanaian the right to join a political party of their
choice, he was not going to relieve any officer serving under
him of their position solely on the basis of their political
party membership, affiliation or sympathies.
For him, the only relevant consideration was their competence
and professionalism and so long as they did not allow their
political sympathies to affect their competence, professionalism
and judgment, he would work with them.
Thus, he worked closely with Mrs. Mould Iddrisu and all the
other heads of Department he came to meet in the Ministry, and
she was still at post when he left the Attorney- General’s
Office for the Foreign Ministry two years later.
Mrs. Mould Iddrisu subsequently sought Nana Akufo-Addo’s
assistance when she decided to enhance her personal career
internationally by applying for a position at the Legal and
Constitutional Affairs of the Commonwealth Secretariat in
London. She approached Nana
Akufo-Addo for a reference in his capacity as her former boss
and as Foreign Minister of the Republic, and did not indeed
indicate at the time that her subsequent voluntary departure
would cause pain to her and her family.
Apart from giving her an excellent written reference, Nana
Akufo-Addo personally lobbied the then Commonwealth Secretary
General, Don Mckinnon, on her behalf, as he would have done for
any other competent Ghanaian seeking an international position.
While Nana Akufo-Addo may empathise with her predicament,
whereby influential persons within the NDC are baying for her
blood because of her alleged slowness in bringing former NPP
government officials to trial, he believes that there are more
responsible ways of handling the pressure than resorting to
unnecessary fabrications.
|
