The National Chairman of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, has said the Akufo-Addo-led administration’s preoccupation each time there is a scandal of corruption is to manage public opinion and get out of it instead.
Nketiah who reiterated that policies are judged by their outcome, thinks that the current administration cannot fight corruption despite the setting up of the Office of the Special Prosecutor, for the fight against corruption.
Speaking in an interview with CTV, Class FM, and Accra FM, on Friday, 31 August 2023, the NDC National Chairman noted that for a government to fight corruption, they must demonstrate a commitment to deal with corruption wherever it happens.
Touching on the steps taken by previous presidents under the 4th Republic to fight corruption, Nketia said indicated that under the erstwhile Mahama-led administration, John Mahama, took steps to have appointees around whom there were allegations of corruption, prosecuted including the then Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) Abuga Pele.
According to Nketiah, what is happening in Ghana currently can best be described as “state capture,” in politics. He explained that a group of people have captured the state and are using the state to achieve private ends.
“So once it happens like that you compromise all the state institutions all the institutions of good governance and so on are all compromised and so instead of having rule of law you have rule by law,” the NDC National Chairman intimated.
He continued: “Instead of having rule of law, we have rule by law. Where somebody else is supreme and he is using the law to achieve his private ends, and that’s what we’re seeing in Ghana now and it is not going to be not possible for the system to be reformed.”
Nketiah further noted that the current administration cannot be reformed.
“This government cannot be reformed it must be scrapped do you understand, so any attempt that looks like oh now they’ve learnt their lesson they want to do things they want to introduce transparency, they want to fight corruption, how can corrupt people fight corruption, It won’t happen so I think that all that is happening is that when there is any scandal the preoccupation is how do we get out of this, how do we manage public opinion.”
The NDC National Chairman also took on the government for pretending to fight corruption by setting up institutions and described the current administration as a “complete deception.”
“A charade, Complete deception. I’ll call this administration the greatest deception, the greatest deception in the 4th republic. It’s like they’ll present what they don’t intend to do as what they are going to do and then mislead everybody and they actually will do what they are going to do,” he lamented.
