Former President John Dramani Mahama has challenged the ruling government to pursue persons who have been accused of perpetrating various corrupt acts under his administration or quit continuously making baseless claims without corroborating them.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo-led government has resorted to using ‘media trial’ tactics to harass various previous government appointees under the guise of fighting corruption in the country instead of focusing on governing the country and making Ghana better.
Remaining on this course he says will diminish the confidence Ghanaians have in the government machinery and tarnish the credibility of government.
“Instead of focusing on the job to make Ghana a better place, every day they complain that an amount of money has gone missing. If money has been lost, conduct the investigation and arrest the perpetrators. Who has the power?”
“This trial by newspaper affects the credibility of the government. If you hear that several sums of money have gone missing yet no one has been arrested for prosecution, then you are destroying the confidence of people in the credibility of the government. So the trial by media must stop,” he said.
Touching on some accusations government has made in recent times against institutions including the Tema Oil Refinery and the sanitation ministry under his watch, Mr. Mahama described them as unfounded.
TOR was accused of failing to prepare monthly bank reconciliation statements resulting in the loss of ¢1,561,434,333.31 to the state, as contained the 2016 Auditor General’s Report.
Sanitation Minister, Kofi Adda had also said a GHc99 million plastic waste levy collected by the John Mahama-led administration could not be traced.
Mahama, however addressing the issue at the just ended Kumasi Unity walk said;
“Recently they said GHc150 billion at TOR is missing. How can GHc150 billion be lost? If such amount is missing, arrest those who stole that amount. Another person also said that GHc90 million is missing from the sanitation fund. We set up the sanitation fund and asked Local Government Ministry to submit guidelines before the money will be released, but Local Government [Ministry] could not submit the guidelines, so the money was not given. How can that be missing?”
The NPP government since its inception in office has pursued the course of investigating and prosecuting former appointees who are guilty of headlining corruption in their various fields.
Government is currently prosecuting the former COCOBOD CEO, Dr Stephen Opuni, former board chair of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Eugene Baffoe Bonnie and four others who are believed to have caused the state to lose vast sums of monies.
Four persons, including the former Director General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, are also being investigated by the Economic and Organised Crimes Office’s (EOCO) for allegedly causing financial loss to the state for the role they played in the SSNIT software scandal.
