The founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings has chastised the current leadership for allowing corruption to envelope the party that upheld probity and accountability in high esteem.
According to him, corruption in the party began under the late President Mills.
Mr. Rawlings who had served twice as a president of Ghana said his wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings broke away from the NDC which had been very instrumental in its upbringing because of corrupt activities that have crept into the party.
“…I can do is to critique and advocate for my people. I can’t hide it. And I believe that was how I won the respect from the larger populace, from both sides of the political divide. I have remained principled. My wife is still standing where she is, cut off from our party that she was very responsible in building up because it became corrupted from Mills’ time,” he added.
Speaking to the Nigerian Guardian newspaper, Jerry Rawlings said such situation is not good for the governing NDC since the biggest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party could use that against them in the upcoming November polls.
“We now fight on the terms of the opposition or the main opposition party [NPP]. Fortunately for them, they have a leader who is not known for messing around with material things. The situation is so bad. So unfortunate!”
Mr. Rawlings who has not been mincing words talking about corruption insisted that he won’t stop talking it.
“All I can do is speak up. I find myself in a situation where I have moral responsibility and no executive authority. I would have wished that my moral authority could have the same influence. But that is not the case, corruption has infiltrated our institutions and their leaders so badly today that they use some kind of lens to demonstrate that you can keep your moral authority, but this is executive power at work,” he lamented.
Mahama faces impeachment over Ford gift saga
Mr. Rawlings’ claims come on the back of pressure being mounted on President Mahama to resign for receiving a $100, 000 Ford vehicle from a Burkinabe contractor who is said to have benefited from some lucrative contracts from government.
The Minority side in Parliament has started collecting signatures of New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs in a bid to have the Speaker of the House open impeachment proceedings against the President or have him investigated.
Corruption has reached epidemic level
The Head of the Human Security Department of the National Security Secretariat, Brigadier-General Joseph Nunoo–Mensah (rtd) had earlier said Ghana’s corruption rate had reached an epidemic status.
“What is happening in Ghana and in the last few days tells me that there is complete rot in our society and we need to do something about it. It is more like an epidemic that is running through the system,” he observed with concern.
Ghana improves slightly in 2015 corruption perception index
Meanwhile the recent Corruption Perception Index (CPI) by anti-graft agency Transparency International revealed that Ghana improved slightly in the fight against corruption in the sub-region.
Ghana ranked the 7th African country with high level of corruption in the latest index, an improvement over the years.
According to a statement from the local chapter of Transparency International, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), “The CPI 2015 scored Ghana 47 out of clean score of 100 and ranked the country 56 out of 168 countries.”
-citifmonline