Having promised to work assiduously to rid the country of its corruption status, it appears President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has not only botched his pledge, but also earned the distrust of Ghanaians on that front, Vice President of policy think-tank, Imani Ghana has said.
Mr. Bentil, speaking on Joynews’ Newsfile program noted how the president's failure to fulfill his pledge of governing the country with the Anas principle to churn out corruption has left Ghanaians extremely disappointed.
This trust however can be regained, if government puts in the right measures to stick to the original plan and clear corruption, beginning with his appointees.
“I don’t believe that corruption is worse but I do believe that people are extremely disappointed in this government’s fight against corruption.
There was a lot of expectation from this government and that it will fight corruption and be robust about it, so far, how many have we seen? It is this president that said we are going to use the Anas principle to speak. Anas is under attack by this same government”. People are becoming immune and we see things happening, nothing is being done so people say, lets just get on with our lives.” He said.
Citing the impact investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas has been able to have on the country’s institutions through his expose’s, Mr. Bentil believes President Akufo-Addo may begin to get back in the good books of Ghanaians if he stands his grounds and kicks against the canker as hard as he promised he would.
“The president talked about the Anas principle. The president made an announcement publicly that he will use the Anas principle.
We have said that Anas is not perfect but the effect of Anas’ work as far as I am concerned is more than EOCO, SFO and the special prosecutor put together and that’s what one man can do? So when the president said the Anas principle, people loved it and there’s a huge disappointed with it because we felt that the Anas method brought us graphic evidence even though its not been tested in court.”
He further added,
“We see zero of that evidence and I think that’s the kind of thing that will excite people and give the sense that we are doing something to fight corruption.”
Mr. Bentil's comments come on the back of recent findings in Afrobarometer report.
The report among other things indicated a rise in corruption under the current government, in fact, it noted that corruption is worsening under President Akufo-Addo.
The Afrobarometer team in Ghana, led by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), interviewed 2,400 adult Ghanaians between 16 September and 3 October 2019.
A sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
Previous surveys were conducted in Ghana in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2017.
Kofi Bentil is Vice President of Imani Ghana