Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, National Chairman of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has stated that the Akufo-Addo administration’s main concern whenever a corruption crisis arises is to manipulate public opinion and escape it.
Nketiah, who emphasised that policies are evaluated based on their results, believes that the current administration is unable to combat corruption despite the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
On Friday, August 31, 2023, the NDC National Chairman said in an interview with CTV, Class FM, and Accra FM that for a government to fight corruption, they must show a determination to deal with corruption wherever it occurs.
Nketia mentioned that during the former Mahama-led administration, John Mahama took action to have appointees around whom there were allegations of corruption, including the then Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) Abuga Pele, prosecuted. This was in reference to the actions taken by previous presidents under the 4th Republic to combat corruption.
Nketiah believes that the current political situation in Ghana is best characterised as “state capture.” He stated that a group of people had taken control of the government and were using it to further their own interests.
“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 criticised the government for claiming to fight corruption by establishing institutions and called the current administration 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.
