Martin A.B.K. Amidu
Former Attorney General (AG) and Minister for Justice, Martin A.B.K. Amidu has stated that there are people in the public sector who are sabotaging the fight against corruption by President Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
According to him, they are doing it for the benefit of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), which just left office.
He said some of those public workers in senior position, particularly those promoted at the dying moments of the Mahama-led NDC administration, are doing ‘cover-ups’ for corrupt former officials and some powerful persons in the country.
According to the former AG, the troubles that the Akufo-Addo government is facing in its attempt to retrieve the GH¢51.2 million fraudulently obtained by NDC financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, was an indication that there are moles in the government.
“I have raised the red flags for President Akufo-Addo and his team to be alert to the dangers ahead and the ultimate plans of Woyome and his mentors waiting in the wings for a possible positive outcome at the Africa Court,” he said in a news release.
The former AG, who is credited for his fight against corruption, earning him the accolade ‘Citizen Vigilante,’ said, “Nothing epitomises corruption in the annals of the history of this country better than the circumstances and context of the Woyome case, and its trial by an irredeemably corrupt High Court Justice,” according to Mr Amidu.
He said, “No reasonable person expects President Nana Akufo-Addo to personally investigate and deal with suspects in fulfillment of his promises of fighting corruption and dealing with past corruption which substantially contributed to earning him the Presidency.”
He said such a function should be taken up by his appointees “to whom he has assigned ministerial responsibility for security and intelligence, law and order, and particularly justice.
“One of the problems faced by some of the appointees of the present government is the ability to go beyond the biased advice being proffered to them by the senior public officers they inherited from the previous government,” he said, adding that “a conscientious and knowledgeable minister should be able, within the first three months in office, to know how many of his officers were recently promoted by the outgoing government and their role in cover-ups in the ministry.”
He said the inability of any minister to understand the composition and promotional history of his/her senior public servants upon whom he depends for advice within the first three to six months meant that “he may be working with moles planted before the demise of the previous government.”
Mr Martin Amidu said the criminal prosecution mounted by the state against Woyome was a sham from the start and added that the collaborators of the NDC financier had been left off the hook.
He claimed the same senior law officers “who thwarted the execution of the judgement and engaged in various spurious agreements with him while their more senior court-going colleagues were in the Supreme Court trying to execute the judgement, are still those in position to advise the present government on outstanding matters related to the case.
“The manner the case was prosecuted by the government and its lawyers clearly facilitated the verdict pronounced by the irredeemably corrupt former Justice Ajet-Nasam of the High Court, who the whole world now knows sold justice for cash and had a penchant for chasing accused persons for payment.”
Mr. Amidu said that in any civilised system of criminal justice administration, the Woyome trial should have been vacated at the instance of the Republic “because of the overwhelming evidence that now-disgraced Justice Ajet-Nasam did not have the capacity to administer impartial criminal justice by virtue of his internalised endemic corrupt nature.”
He said that there are other aspects of the Woyome case which the government could pursue in addition to the judgement and order under reference, if the NPP administration was really bent on fighting corruption.
“Unfortunately, you (President Akufo-Addo) have the misfortune of working with some officers who have earned their mid-night promotions protecting the looting and covering up of the activities of the previous government,” he said.
He then added, “They have no interest in pointing out residual matters in this case to your government unless your government has a personal commitment, the energy and industry to fish out those matters by yourselves.”
By William Yaw Owusu