{"id":410680,"date":"2018-03-18T15:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=410680"},"modified":"2018-03-19T06:03:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T06:03:49","slug":"be-fair-to-opuni-dont-persecute-him-george-loh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/03\/be-fair-to-opuni-dont-persecute-him-george-loh\/","title":{"rendered":"Be fair to Opuni; don&#8217;t persecute him \u2013 George Loh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A former Member of Parliament for the North Dayi constituency, George Loh is protesting against the legal action initiated against former Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Dr. Stephen Opuni, suggesting that the state is not treating him fairly.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the specific charge of causing financial loss to the state cannot be held against Mr. Opuni since no individual or group of cocoa farmers have publicly claimed he supplied ineffective fertilizers during his tenure.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;sqRyPqQZw1nhiAiEjtNso9yxbmkJHvA4&#8243;]Speaking on <strong>The Big Issue<\/strong>, George Loh cautioned against the deliberate persecution of former government officials, noting that there must be &#8220;prosecution and not persecution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He indicated that the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Afriyie Akoto, must equally be charged for supplying ineffective chemicals worth millions of dollars to farmers at the height of the fall armyworm outbreak in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs Nana Addo not seeing that his Minister for Agriculture [Dr. Afriyie Akoto], bought chemicals [worth] millions of dollars and the farmers who used it, came out publicly and told the minister that these are bogus chemicals? Nana Addo is asleep, he hasn\u2019t heard that. And that one, it cannot go for EOCO, it cannot go for trial\u2026 The fall armyworm case, where we spent millions of dollars to buy chemicals that did not work, that one the Minister did not cause financial loss to the state?\u201d he quizzed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis one [Dr. Opuni\u2019s case], no farmer has come to say the chemicals didn\u2019t work. In fact, records even show that we had actually improved our cocoa yield. No technical person has come out to say the fertilizer did not meet the standards,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Dr. Opuni charged\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Attorney General last week filed some 27 counts including a charge of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/03\/14\/opuni-businessman-charged-for-causing-financial-loss-in-ghc43m-deal\/\"><strong>causing financial loss to the state<\/strong><\/a> against Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni.<\/p>\n<p>He is being sued together with one Seidu Agongo, CEO of Zeera Group of Companies and Agricult Ghana Limited, beneficiaries of a supposed fraudulent fertilizer contract worth over GH\u00a243 million.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_131383\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-131383\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-131383\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/SBE_2467-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/SBE_2467-copy.jpg 640w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/SBE_2467-copy-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-131383\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The first court hearing has been scheduled for March 23, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr. George Loh, who is also a private legal practitioner said the state must be fair in dealing with such matters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll I\u2019m saying in simple terms is that, when people have done wrong in this country, they must be prosecuted, but not persecuted,\u201d he told the host of <strong>The Big Issue<\/strong>, Selorm Adonoo on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Opuni\u2019s prosecution a case of \u2018injustice\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the National Organizer of the NDC, Kofi Adams, has described the prosecution of the former COCOBOD boss as <a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/03\/15\/opunis-prosecution-case-selective-injustice-kofi-adams\/\"><strong>injustice<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_163390\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-163390\" style=\"width: 628px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-163390\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/kofi-adams-at-EC-forum.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"628\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/kofi-adams-at-EC-forum.jpg 468w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/kofi-adams-at-EC-forum-300x212.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 628px) 100vw, 628px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-163390\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NDC National Organizer, Kofi Adams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He said the government is only making frantic efforts to cause public disaffection towards the previous NDC administration by smearing former state officials with allegations of corruption and initiating legal action against them for same, although its own officials have been cited for various acts of corruption.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<br \/>\nBy: Jonas Nyabor\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former Member of Parliament for the North Dayi constituency, George Loh is protesting against the legal action initiated against former Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Dr. Stephen Opuni, suggesting that the state is not treating him fairly. According to him, the specific charge of causing financial loss to the state cannot be held against [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":166724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,10,11],"tags":[17887,6668,3,129,7613],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Be fair to Opuni; don&#039;t persecute him \u2013 George Loh - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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