The Ghanaian Chronicle – It would appear that the camel has managed to squeeze itself through the eye of the needle. Politicians on both sides of the divide seem to have achieved a rare consensus:
That the John IV Dramani Mahama National Democratic Congress (NDC) government is riddled with runaway corruption, and wonder of wonders, President Mahama agrees with them, though he rejects their conviction that he dares not confront the canker.
For months, President Mahama had stoically ignored constant opposition snapping at his heels, about turning a blind eye to the massive raping of the economy by his appointees, while concomitantly heaping untold hardship on the populace through a rash of taxes and utility price hikes.
Of course, there is no secret as to how President Mahama and his Kitchen Cabinet had rationalized away the opposition allegations: political frustration, skin pain and grandstanding for 2016.
But he was stung rudely out of his comfort zone when one of his own – Mr. Alban Sumana Bagbin, a sitting 6th term MP, former Majority Leader, one of three wise men overseeing presidential priority projects and a fellow Northerner – joined the fray.
Peeved beyond decorum by five-month-long alleged deliberate obstruction of his access to the President by a junior presidential staffer, who has won no election ever for the NDC; Mr. Bagbin had gone public with his frustration and anger.
He reportedly told Joy FM that since he had been denied access to President Mahama, he would advise him in public, adding that he was yet to see the political leadership in the fight against corruption.
Mr. Bagbin said the use of ministerial committees, instead of the appropriate state institutions, to fight corruption was the wrong way of dealing with the canker, and that there is a better approach to fight corruption, which he and others have put together, after attending several international conferences on corruption
“But government upon government has looked on the other side, that strategy is not being implemented. And so corruption on a daily basis is now becoming a way of life”, Bagbin condemned.
Responding this week, President Mahama said those who question his commitment and ability to fight corruption “don’t really know me well”.
“Although there are many anti-corruption legislations some loopholes in the laws were being exploited by corrupt persons to perpetrate the canker. Government would in the next few … announce new measures designed to tighten controls and make it impossible for corruption to thrive”, President Mahama assured.
The Chronicle wonders what these new measures would be. Before Bagbin’s disclosure of anti-corruption methods that governments have allegedly been dodging, former CHRAJ boss Emile Short had also hinted of another such document which was already with President Mahama.
Can President Mahama assure anxious Ghanaians that these new measures to “tighten controls” are from these allegedly foolproof anti-corruption manuals? Maybe now that the Mahama Family’s integrity is on the line, Mr. President would cut through whatever invisible strings that are preventing him from implementing them.
The Chronicle would also reiterate its call earlier this week for the conversion of the Office of the Attorney-General into the Office of the Special Prosecutor, with powers to automatically investigate all allegations of corruption and prosecute culprits without reference to the Minister of Justice.
Some truths are self-evident. In the fight against corruption a properly resourced Office of the Special Prosecutor is one such concrete proof of a political leader’s commitment to uproot corruption.
The Chronicle would like to believe that President John IV Dramani Mahama is really the fire-eating anti-corruption crusader that he has assured all and sundry that HE IS!
