Visa scandal: Akufo-Addo can never fight corruption – Batidam

A former member of the AU advisory board and anti-corruption campaigner, Daniel Batidam, has alleged a cover-up after President Akufo-Addo cleared the suspended deputy sports minister of any wrong doing in the Australia visa scandal.

Pius Hadzide and Board chair of the National Sports Authority Kwadjo Baah Agyemang were Monday reinstated by the President after police investigations reportedly cleared them of any wrong doing.

The two were part of officials suspended by the President over the Australia visa racketeering scandal which created public uproar.

Speaking to Starr News, Mr. Batidam observed that the delay in releasing the full report of the Police raises eyebrows.

He said: “Many Ghanaians must have by now come to the conclusion that this President and this government is not only unable to do anything or much about issues of allegations of corruptions that come up. But that, he is actually actively protecting his members and I have been on record to have said that this cannot be in the interest even of the government itself.

“One is tempted to think that perhaps there is a wrong impression that the government or the presidency has that by shielding its appointees and by coming to their defense whenever claims of wrong doing arise therefore they may be given the impression that the appointees and the government for that matter is clean. I am afraid they are just postponing the problem.”

Meanwhile, a former head of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Justice Emile Short has backed calls for government to publish the report of the Police investigations that exonerated the deputy sports minister in the Australia visa scandal.



Speaking to Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Tuesday, Justice Short said it would have been appropriate for the state institutions that exonerated the individuals to announce their outcome instead of the President, as he did in Koforidua over the weekend.

“I would prefer that we have a full report of the investigation and the grounds on which the investigative body arrived at its conclusion which led to the exoneration of Pius Ahadzie. We shouldn’t focus on the President announcing the exoneration instead of the Investigating Body. The substance of the report should be a major concern,” he said.