Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress has accused the government of deliberately targeting him for financial persecution.
The man popularly referred to as General Mosquito alleged that the government had deliberately set out to cripple him financially by running his businesses aground.
He disclosed on Starr Chat on Accra-based Starr FM, March 2, 2022; that his four blockmaking factories are suffering because of the failure of the government to honour financial obligations to contractors he works with.
Asked about life in opposition being hell, he responded: “As far as I am concerned, I wouldn’t say life (in opposition) is hell that much because as a General Secretary, my life doesn’t change whether we are in government or we are in opposition.
“The only area where I think it hurts is where there is a deliberate effort by a ruling government to destroy your business with the thinking that when you are weak financially, you will come begging them.
“My businesses have been destroyed. Everybody knows me to be into blockmaking, and all four block factories I was operating, none of them is functioning properly now. One is limping, as for the three I have stopped production completely,” he revealed.
He recounted an instance with a District Assembly in Dodowa, where he supplied pavement blocs to a contractor, who had been given assurances of payment by the Assembly after a pressing task was discharged.
General Mosquito said his factory supplied blocks for a project that has been completed and commissioned “but the Assembly has refused to pay the contractor so I remain unpaid. So, all the money that I should be using to buy material is locked up. It is deliberate.”
He added that the deliberate nature of the incident is because funding for the project was from a secured source and the Assembly had expressly committed to pay prior to supply.
Asiedu Nketia said he has reported to two local government ministers “but nothing has happened yet.”
He stressed: “I don’t have the appetite to take them to court yet.”
Source: ghanaweb.com