The chairman of the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption Daniel Batidam has expressed worry over increasing cases of corruption being recorded in the country, urging government to crack the whip.
Mr. Batidam, who advised former President John Mahama on corruption when he was in power, thus urged the Akufo-Addo led government to “prosecute corrupt former government officials” found culpable of the nefarious act.
Speaking Monday on Accra-based Radio XYZ, the anti-corruption campaigner stated the high demand to fight corruption recently is a good step, observing that “corruption at any level is not acceptable.”
He added: “I worry a lot about corruption in our country. Not just because of its continuous existence but because of the approaches we are adopting in dealing with corruption.
“It appears to me as we sit today, if you ask me I’ll say corruption is getting worse…because there was corruption before January 2017, everybody talked about it, the examples are there and there is still corruption since January till now. That means it is getting worse because the new corruption has added to the old corruption.”
Addressing a meeting of Ghanaians resident in Sierra Leone as part of his one-day working in that country, President Akufo-Addo pledged to deal ruthlessly with the canker, noting that he will not shield any public official found to be engaged in acts of corruption or malfeasance.
Citing the recent news of the arrest of some Customs officials responsible for the loss of some GHc1.2billion in revenue to the state, Akufo-Addo said: “When people get up in the net, I am imploring people not to come to me and say that ‘Oh! Nana, this man is my relative, so spare him.”
“That is the problem in Ghana. You find people going to speak to your wife with the hope trying to influence you. I am not going to listen to that, because my concern is Ghana and not one or two individuals,” he added.
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