The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has cast a damming verdict on President Akufo-Addo’s fight against corruption.
In the view of the GBA, several acts of corruption have gone uninvestigated and sometimes persons involved and indicted in corrupt activities are cleared of any wrongdoing.
Speaking during a press conference in Accra, GBA President Yaw Acheampong Boafo expressed disappointment in the state of the fight against corruption.
“If your goal in coming to government is to enrich yourself then don’t come, go to the private. The public sector is going to be about public service exactly. This undertaking gave hope to Ghanaians of the emergence of a new dawn of politics.”
“However, it is our view, with several related corruption-related incidents involving some of the political appointees and also among some public officers under the current administration and the lethargic manner with which they are dealt with and even defended and protected leaves a lot to be desired,” he stated.
Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo has emphasized the need for Ghanaians to dispel the notion that individuals elected into public office are inherently corrupt and that law enforcement and anti-corruption bodies tend to favour the ruling government.
He emphasized that security agencies and other anti-corruption entities, such as the Ghana Police Service (GPS), are dedicated to serving the public’s interests and not the interests of any specific individual or government.
President Akufo-Addo urged all to erase the perception that elected officials were corrupt and were in office to steal.
“We ought to pray for the understanding in Ghana that not everybody elected in this office is a thief. It’s an assumption in our country that people who come to political offices enrich themselves. Some of us would have been better off in the private sector. It is an assumption that we ought to work hard and try and dispel.”
“And we should all find a way of bolstering the confidence of the people in them…We have to pray that that becomes understood and that becomes a reality,” President Akufo-Addo said when the new Chairman of the Christian Council, Rt. Rev. Dr. Hilliad Dogbe led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on him at the Jubilee House.
