President Nana Akufo-Addo
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) met in Cape Coast over the weekend to take stock after the historic December 7, 2016 electoral victory which apparently consigned the NDC to the dustbin of history.
We commend the party’s bigwigs for a successful conference and hope that other political parties will follow their steps to render accounts to their members, especially after the December 7 polls.
However, several issues were addressed by the leadership of the party, with President Akufo-Addo touching on the much              talked-about corruption in the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration. Issues of corruption featured prominently in the 2016 campaign with several allegations directed at the then ruling party – the NDC.
However, with the NPP in power, expectations are high that the alleged corrupt appointees will be paraded before the law for the necessary sanctions to be meted out to them.
Quoting the president’s mantra, Ghanaians are also in a hurry to see the back of the people who squandered their resources, thereby depriving them of decent living. But it appears the waiting period is not yet over as the nation expects the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to start work on high profile corruption cases, some of which are already playing out in the media.
We think some of the cases can still go ahead without waiting for the establishment of the OSP as the attorneys at the Attorney General’s Department are capable of prosecuting corruption cases.
Anyway, while we await for the Special Prosecutor, we also admonish the president not to fail to crack the whip on his appointees who may be caught in the corruption web.
This is the only way to ensure that the Office of the Special Prosecutor is not caught up in the political maze so that people will not tag it as a political tool set up to with-hunt opponents of the administration.
Complaints indicate that corruption appears to be rearing its ugly head in the new administration as well. There are too many allegations of malfeasance among some appointees of the administration, with some of them coming not just from ordinary people, but influential members of the president’s own party. Invitations should quickly be extended to the peddlers to substantiate their allegations, rather than allowing them to hang on the neck of the government.
It’s however, heartwarming listening to the president over the weekend on the issue of such allegations against his appointees. He is invariably saying that the era of ‘bring evidence’ before cases can be investigated as trumpeted by his predecessor, is gone with history.
We salute the president for not allowing sordid allegations to be swept under the carpet but according to him, are thoroughly investigated by the security agencies to bring erring officers to book. Corruption is a major issue on the Ghanaian political landscape; and it can easily sink any government – no matter the amount of goodwill.
We think that this government is too young to allow corruption allegations to swallow its good intentions as millions of Ghanaians who placed their hopes in the NPP will not forgive it (government).
It is instructive therefore, for the Captain of the ship, as President Akufo-Addo indicated, to make sure that no ‘Jonah’ is allowed to sink the vessel.