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| Kofi Adams |
National Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC),
Kofi Adams, could not state emphatically if he personally purchased the
five cars alleged to have been seized from his home by national
security operatives.
The 2016 National Campaign Coordinator for
the NDC in the 2016 general elections; who is livid over the seizure
whiles he is away in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), says what matters
is that, the cars belong to him because they are registered in his name.
It
is believed the vehicles, two land cruisers and three pick-ups may have
been seized following allegations that some officials of the previous
government have misappropriated some state assets including vehicles.
When
the Host of Citi Eyewitness News, Richard Sky, asked whether he owned
all the vehicles, Mr. Adams said “I am the owner of the two land
cruisers and a pick-up. They are registered in my name. If something is
registered in your name don’t you own it?” he asked.
But when he was pushed further, he now claimed ownership of all the five vehicles.
“I
just want to cut a long story short by letting you know that everything
is mine because they are not all registered in anybody’s name. They are
not registered in anybody’s name or it’s not as if I bought them for
anyone to register them.”
When he was specifically asked whether
he purchased the cars himself, he said, “Is the purchase of the vehicle
also in any argument now? Richard; is that why you called me? Are we
contesting the purchase of the vehicles?” he queried.
‘Let’s be concerned about the seizure, not the purchase’ According
to him, people should rather be concerned about the unlawful entry and
seizure of people’s assets in their private homes in the name of
national security, rather than who purchased the vehicles.
“A
state vehicle cannot be registered in an individual’s name. State
vehicles they don’t pay taxes on them, so they can’t be registered in an
individual’s name unless it is sold or auctioned after a period of
time, then the ownership is then transferred from the state to that
individual; but that is not the case here either. It’s not a state
vehicle that I bought; and it is not a state vehicle that was
transferred at any given time; so that should not even be an issue at
all.”
How did you come by five vehicles?Mr.
Adams said in his capacity as a national officer of a major political
party, coupled with his previous engagements, he believes he has the
wherewithal to acquire five personal vehicles.
“…You have just
counted the number of things that I do; and I will be surprised that you
will think that a national officer of a political party of my calibre,
should not be able to have means of transport to move around the country
to work, and that an officer of my level cannot have operational cars
to be able to send people around to work. People who have used those
vehicles know what they use them for” he argued.
Mr. Adams, who
wondered what the cars are going to be used for, said he will resort to
every necessary and legal means possible to retrieve his vehicles from
the national security operatives.
“What they are going to them;
are they going to break them up so that if I drive them I will go and
die? Are they going to plant things in them? Are we living in a country
where anybody can come to your home at any time and take things away?
One is a personal vehicle, the others are operational vehicles that
people use for assignments; and one particular vehicle contains a lot of
things that I use with a lot of information; and taking that vehicle
out in my absence is something that is quite serious and we must all
follow up to get answers from the government” he stated.
“There
are many options; we report to the police or we take legal action. If
those who have taken them realize the folly in what they have done and
return the vehicles with apology, we will look at that, and I will make
sure that anything in the vehicle is returned intact. And the action
that I will take, there are a lot of options available for me.”
The seizureNarrating
how the alleged seizure occurred, Mr. Adams said explained that, before
he travelled to the UAE last Sunday, some six officials claiming to be
National Security personnel visited his House on Saturday in an attempt
to seize the cars in his absence.
He said he managed to stop them
when he was called at a funeral grounds, and later confirmed that the
men were not ordered to carry out the act by the National Security
Minister.
He said he found it strange to receive a call whiles
outside the country on Wednesday that the same six men with others, had
returned to seize his five vehicles.
“I had to travel to Dubai
for the function, so I left Ghana on Sunday, only to receive a call that
sixteen military persons and some police officers together with four of
the six who came the last time and a DVLA officer with a machine, came
to the house, got into the yard, and insisted on getting the vehicles
out.
The DVLA official had a system that could check the
genuineness of the registration when you enter the number of the
vehicle; he did so according to the Youngman who was at home then, and
everything clearly indicated that these were vehicles that had been
properly registered and did not even belong to the state.”
“So
the advice was that they needed to go back, but it looks as if the taste
for seizing vehicles was so high, so they insisted the Youngman must
bring the keys for them to do a test on a particular one.
He told
them he won’t do that; but one of them used the rear side of his AK-47
to hit him, and so he was frightened. Once he was walking into the room
to pick the keys, they followed him forcefully, and whether he was
picking the keys, they picked the other keys and tried each car to find
out which one fitted and drove everything away.”
Meanwhile authorities at the Ministry of Defence have denied sanctioning any soldier to carry out such an assignment.
