Education minister Betty resigns

Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills accepted the resignation of Minister of Education Betty Mould Iddrisu, the government said on Tuesday. The former attorney general and minister of justice tendered in her resignation letter at the Presidency late Monday, the director of communication at the presidency, Koku Anyidoho, announced in a statement issued here on Tuesday. President Mills thanked Mould Iddrisu for here services to the country during the period she served in government and wished her well in all her future endeavors, the statement added. Minister of Employment and Social Welfare Enoch Teye Mensah has been assigned additional responsibility to oversee the Ministry of Education until further notice, the statement said. There were speculations last week that Iddrisu might speak publicly to defend her name in the infamous payment of over 48 million U. S. dollars to the financier of the ruling National Democratic Conference (NDC), Alfred Woyome, when she was the Minister of Justice and Attorney General from 2009 to 2011. The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) had called for her head for failing to do due diligence in the matter while some NDC activists and supporters had suggested she be sacked because of her mishandling of the affair. Mould-Iddrisu was previously the Head of Legal and Constitutional Affairs of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London before she was made Ghana's first ever woman minister of justice and attorney general in 2009. She becomes the second cabinet minister in the current administration to have lost job over the debt payment issue in a week. Attorney General Martin Amidu was dismissed on Thursday by the president, who asked him to prove corrupt allegations against government officials or resign.