Mr. Bediako addressing the press
The Movement for Truth and Accountability (MFTA), a non-partisan anti-corruption organization established to enhance transparency and accountability has threatened to discontinue corrupt cases filed to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Commissioner for Human Rights Administrative Justice and Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
According to the movement, the three anti-corrupt institutions have failed to respond to the various corrupt cases filed against government and non-governmental institutions, which has resulted in destabilizing the core functions of the organization.
The group also alleged that due to its swiftness in pin-pointing corrupt practices that have bedeviled state institutions, some person who are unrelated to the movement has resorted to extorting money from companies implicated in their corrupt cases filed to the three anti-corrupt institutions.
Addressing journalists in Accra, the Convener for the Movement, Joseph Bediako, expressed disappointment in the anti-corrupt institutions for their inability to address cases filed against these companies after 14 months of informing them.
They stated that they have filed six corrupt cases involving big companies and institutions looting and sharing state resources but has been ignored by EOCO, CHRAJ, OSP, institutions mandated to fight corruption.
“As an anti-corrupt body, we aim to enhance the integrity, transparency, participation, accountability, independence, and justice in our country’s democracy. It is very disheartening to come to terms that in a situation where we file corrupt cases against an institution and it takes 14 months without any response it worrying and also destabilizes the purpose of the movement”.
“This situation has made the movement to discontinue the cases and refer them to the court, for that we are rest assured that the court will treat our cases with the needed attention it needs,” he said.
Mr. Bediako also disassociated the group’s involvement with the extortion allegations saying, “We the movement is making it clear to the public that we know nothing about this and we haven’t received any money from any company regarding the allegations we brought before EOCO, CHRAJ, and OSP.”
He added that “any company which has paid money to any individual should go ahead and take their money back because the movement was not formed to blackmail any company or extort money from the companies. Our aim is to sanitize the system to reduce corruption and bribery.”
It will be recalled that in 2021, the MFTA group cited some 1,200 local and international companies alleged to be involved in money laundering, under-invoicing and tax evasion.
The companies are said to have included automobile company, frozen fish and chicken company, rice, sugar, spare parts importers, mineral water company, alcoholic beverage company among others.
These companies, according to reports, are currently being investigated by the Ghana Revenue Authority, (GRA) the Economic And Organized Crime Office (EOCO) and the Financial Intelligence Centre.
According to the group, the anti-corrupt institutions have developed cold feet in prosecuting the perpetrators implicated in the corrupt scandals.
BY Prince Fiifi Yorke