Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Veep debunks claims; says he did not forge his degree






Vice President, Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur has debunked claims by an NPP group called Young Patriots that he forged his 1980 MSc. Economics Degree from the University of Ghana.

He described the allegations as mere distraction to his political career stating that his degree certificate is currently in the academic registry of the University of Ghana.

To him, his detractors are just living up to their name, therefore his focus is on promoting the campaign messages of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Speaking in an interview with Citi FM, Vice President and Vice Presidential candidate of the NDC, Amissah Arthur, explained the circumstances that have become basis for the allegations levelled against him by the Young Patriots.

“My first thesis was on health economics, on the economic costs of malaria. My supervisor, Richard Brooks, left Ghana just around the time I was finishing, and there was nobody who was willing or able to supervise my thesis. Dr. Buamad then offered to supervise another thesis, which I did. Dr Buamad then left for the University of Bayero in Nigeria. Every time I finished a chapter I will post it to him and then he will post it back... so it took some time.”

“I finished the thesis in 1979 and then I was offered a job as a lecturer in the Department when the degree was awarded. The degree was awarded, I suspect or I believe, early in 1980 so anybody who is looking at the 1980 pass list in June will not see my name there because I would have been notified of the degree much earlier in January of 1980.”

He continued: “The problem that I have is that this was not a foreign university degree. It was a University of Ghana degree which was being offered and appointed in the University of Ghana. The Legon professors knew the work that I had done so there was no problem at all about a fake degree or whatever it is they are bringing in.”

 “If somebody is going to the end of an academic year and looking at the pass list and saying that your name is not there, he is looking at the wrong list. He should go to the University and they will tell him that some of these postgraduate degrees were awarded before the final exam degrees were awarded.

Touching on his alleged forged certificate from the University of Ghana, Mr. Amissah pointed out that “because I knew I had done good work and it was the same university I didn’t even collect it. That certificate must be lying in the academic registry. Now that you people ask I am going to try to recover it.”

The emergence of forged certificates and inaccurate Curriculum Vitae (CV) has become a topical issue in the country’s political discourse.

Both National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Party have raised concerns over the authenticity of the academic background of their Presidential candidates with the two major parties throwing tantrums at each other.

An NDC group called Research for Advocacy Platform, in a press conference on Monday, slammed the Presidential candidate of the opposition NPP, Nana Addo, for failing to state in his CV that he attended Oxford University.

According to the group, the omission might have occurred as a result of Nana Addo’s misconduct at the University.

Convener for the Research for Advocacy Platform, Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, accused Nana Addo of concealing information from the public and added he had compromised his credibility.

In a rebuttal to these claims, the NPP Young Patriots also pointed out at a press conference that the Vice President and 2012 Vice Presidential candidate of the NDC had forged his MSc. Economic degree from the University of Ghana, thereby doubting his honesty to the nation.

They revealed that from their checks from the University of Ghana, Mr. Amissah Arthur’s name could not be found in the list of 1980 graduates nor the University aware of his graduation from the faculty.

Meanwhile, Vice President Amissah Arthur bewailed the actions by the Young Patriots and insisted their actions are directed to distract him. 

Source: Adu Gyamfi Ameyaw

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