Running Ahead Of Ourselves

Corruption is, without doubt, the most popular word in Ghana today. As a matter of fact, so embedded has the practice become in our social fabric that it seems to be defying efforts to fight it.

Political observers think the John Dramani Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration lost the 2016 election largely due to the perception that it was embedded in corrupt.

It was therefore not surprising that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, soon after election, did not only vow to disown any of his appointees who would be found engaging in corruption, but also put in place a number of anti-corruption measures.

These include online systems to check corruption (at GPHA, DVLA, Passport Office, and the Registrar-General’s Department), the Right to Information Law, the introduction of e-procurement and e-justice programmes, the land digitization process, the Office of the Special Prosecutor, and the National ID programme, among others.

Unfortunately, in spite of all these, civil society groups and many Ghanaians still believe there is the creeping normalization of the canker among the populace, and wish more is done to reduce it.

What is, however, not pleasant is the way politicians are desperately sniffing around and painting every act of seeming corruption in political colours.

In our recent history, the NDC has demonstrated its penchant for rushing to the international community with issues it perceives to be corruption-related.

For instance in 2017, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Minority Ranking Member on Foreign Affairs, led a delegation to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission requesting an investigation into a GHȻ2.25 billion bond initiated by the finance minister.

A few months later, the party sent another petition to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, for clarification on the $2 billion barter deal between Ghana and Sinohydro.

Currently, the hue and cry all over the political terrain is who, between Nana Akufo-Addo and John Dramani Mahama, is more corrupt.

While the NDC is citing scandals at BOST, PDS, PPA and YEA to tag this administration as the most corrupt ever, the NPP, in a response, says the NDC is merely shouting as loudly as possible in the unrealistic hope of gaining doubtful political capital, and questioned the moral right of the NDC in talking about corruption.

According to the NPP, the NDC general secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, awarded huge Bui Dam contracts to himself when the NDC was in power, while President Mahama, barely a week before leaving office, signed off 75% of the nation’s bauxite deposits to his younger brother.

THE NEW PUBLISHER finds is appalling that the two leading political parties in the country seem to have nothing to tell Ghanaians than to be comparing notes over who, between them, is more corrupt.

In the view of the paper, every single act of proven corruption case is condemnable, irrespective of the numbers.

We therefore call on the NPP and NDC to stop disturbing our ears with the number of corrupt cases in their opponent’s bag, and start heeding to the sensibilities of the masses.

To Nana Addo, the people want to see a reduction in the size of his government. They also want to see a more responsible opposition, with fresh ideas, from John Mahama.