A former chairperson of the National Development Planning Commission under the Akufo-Addo government, Prof. Stephen Adei, has raised some concerns over the composition of ‘ORAL’.
He says the five-member committee to spearhead President-elect Mahama’s Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL), although, shows Mahama’s seriousness towards fighting the canker, the composition is a bit problematic.
Despite admitting that all the members are people he personally respects in their respective fields with proven capabilities, some are politically tainted, which raises some concerns.
Prof. Adei cited the Chairman of the committee for instance, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who is the Member of Parliament for North Tongu on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), as someone people may have issues with due to where he belongs.
According to him, appointing people who are politically tainted to fight corruption is one of the that that make the fight problematic sometimes.
“The reason is very simple, the people on it, I like them, in terms of their competence, but most of them are ‘identifiable NDC sympathisers or pure NDCs’ and this is what really makes some of our efforts undermined. Somebody would say what do you expect Ablakwa to do? He will have to do something against NPP,” he said on Hot Issues on TV3 Sunday, December 22, 2024.
He further explained that “here are many non-NPP and non-overtly NDC who are competent and capable. Of course, let me mention one, I know he is too old he will not be on it but as an example, if you put Emile Short, if he were younger, everybody will respect the outcome and is not going to be bamboozled by NPP papers, so the composition could have been…, if you put Domelevo, that’s okay.”
The President-elect, after naming the five-member committee for ORAL, explained that his outfit received several calls and text messages from people regarding corruption and corruption-related activities in various places that required probe.
He said it became necessary that evidence substantiating these allegations are put together and forwarded to the appropriate state agencies mandated to work on them after taking over the government.
John Mahama says the team will not be determining which individual or group to be investigate and prosecuted or otherwise, but would rather assemble the evidences being provided by the public for onward action to be taken by the appropriate state institutions.
“Some call me on my phone, some text me, others pass through other people. We want a focal point where all that evidence is directed so that they can assemble that evidence and once we come into office…, ORAL is not going to be investigating people. It is going to gather the evidence and pass that evidence to the government institutions that are supposed to do that kind of work,” he explained.
The President-elect was speaking on Thursday, December 19, 2024, when Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, Myriam Montrat, paid a courtesy call on him.
“With regards to ORAL, Operation Recover All Loot, I announced the appropriately committee and I think people are misunderstanding it. We are receiving a lot of information on things that are going wrong, corruption scandals and all that,” he stated.
John Mahama urged Ghanaians to provide every evidence of corruption they have to the team so they can subsequently submit to the requisite institutions for action to be taken.
Setting up ‘ORAL’ shows Mahama’s seriousness towards corruption fight – Prof. Adei
