The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has responded to a statement made by Kwaku Ansa-Asare, a founding member of the party, who said that the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the most corrupt in Ghana’s 4th Republic.
In an interview with Citi News on Thursday, May 30, 2024, Haruna Mohammed, the Deputy General Secretary of the NPP, said he was surprised by what Ansa-Asare, a former Director-General of the Ghana Law School, had said.
He said that no government in the 4th Republic has done more to fight corruption than the Akufo-Addo government.
Haruna Mohammed said that the NPP founding member’s statement was wrong and had no basis.
“I am surprised that this comment is coming from a legal person who knows that before somebody is going to be pronounced to be corrupt, it will be grounded in law. And having listened to and read what he has said, he said ‘I don’t have the statistics, but watching the political terrain, the various approaches to the fight against corruption, I would say that this is the worst government we have ever had to combat corruption’,” he said.
“And I’m surprised because if he takes his mind back and looks at the policies and interventions that have been put by this government… there was no Office of the Special Prosecutor, there was no Right to Information. There were so many things that were lacking in terms of transparency and accountability.
If this government has been able to institute these and you cannot evaluate the institution of these things by His Excellency the President under his government, and to say he’s the most corrupt or this is the worst government ever, I am surprised at which hymnbook he is reading from,” he added.
The NPP Deputy General Secretary also said, “But I’m happy he’s saying that he doesn’t have the statistics to support that; he cannot just come out and then speak on matters that are not grounded in law and that are factually and statistically inaccurate.”
Kwaku Ansa-Asare said in an interview on Citi TV’s ‘Face to Face’ on May 28 that the John Evans Atta Mills administration was the best at fighting corruption under the Fourth Republic, while the Akufo-Addo government was the most corrupt.
He ranked the Fourth Republican presidents based on their anti-corruption efforts, putting the current government at the bottom.
The government has often talked about its record in fighting corruption, pointing to the money it has given to anti-corruption agencies and the investigations it has started against officials who have been accused of wrongdoing.
However, the president has been called a ‘clearing agent’ because most of his appointees who have been accused have been cleared after investigations. Ghana’s ranking on the annual corruption perception index has also not been good since 2017.
