President Nana Akufo-Addo
Leadership requires forthrightness, with its quality gauged by varied means. The leader’s ability to take decisive actions without quavering when the need arises is one of the attributes of a good leader determined to fight corruption and procurement breaches. Â
An expos̩ yesterday about an alleged act of impropriety by a public official prompted the President to crack the whip on one of his appointees Рthe CEO of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).
Following the screening of the documentary about a company in which the PPA CEO is the largest shareholder winning juicy government contracts, the President swiftly took the first action: the suspension of the official and its referral to the appropriate state agencies for the necessary action.
That is all the President can do for now. The case must be probed thoroughly following which the necessary prosecutorial processes applied so the suspect can be arraigned.
A delay in the President’s action could have prompted unsatisfactory reactions from his political opponents who must be disappointed that he has acted swiftly.
Bad elements in governments cannot easily be determined by their looks except through such investigations.
Those who are unable to live up to the expectation of the President and continue to engage in such acts of impropriety have no place in any decent government.
Those with cobwebs in their closets must expect their days of reckoning.
While we are excited and appreciative of the President’s immediate action, we hasten to ask that the relevant agencies, to which the matter has been referred to, deal with it expeditiously.
Those who think that such acts of impropriety can be glossed over as it happened under previous regimes are in for a shocker.
The pre-prosecution enquiry should be thorough and those who have soiled their hands in this mess should not be spared no matter their influence. When it is eventually established that the suspect’s company benefitted from the improprieties the accrued ill-gotten dividends should be retrieved and returned to the state kitty.
We have had enough of this nonsense from persons who are expected to live above board yet act with criminal intent.
It is instructive that the head of a state entity responsible for ensuring propriety in public procurements by adhering to laid-down standards would descend to this lowest ebb of impropriety. Shameful and despicable!!!
Even if the exposé had not stripped him at this time, it would not have taken long for nemesis to catch up with him. We are suspicious that some technocrats could be involved in the mess. These persons whose negligence or complicity enabled the CEO to get away with this breach until the exposé hit the public domain must be identified and brought before the law.
Enough of this nonsense by persons who are expected to help the President to achieve his developmental agenda.