“I’ll protect the public purse” and “if you want to make money don’t come to the government, go to the private sector”, are some of the utterances from President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo which Daniel Yaw Domelevo thought was going to change the corruption narrative in Ghana.
However, the former Auditor-General says the promises have overwhelmed the realities on the ground, sinking the country into more corruption than what the current administration inherited.
Speaking about the menace and its related acts that have bedeviled the State on TV3’s Hot Issues Sunday, March 17, 2024, Mr. Domelevo noted that “the buck stops with the President” when it comes to fighting corruption in the country.
Citing Paul Kagame’s influence in Rwanda for instance, the renowned accountant indicated that President Akufo-Addo assured Ghanaians of his intent to fight corruption with his utterances, but is doing less about those who are milking the nation.
He told host, Keminni Amanor, that there is a cartel that once a person belongs to it, the laws of the land will never catch up with them irrespective of the atrocities they commit.
“When we talk about the systems should be working, the buck stops with the President at the top. Discipline cannot be enforced from below. It comes from the top down. Actually, in Financial Management we say “it storms at the top and drizzles at the bottom”. If there is enough storm at the bottom, the drizzles will be enough for us. So, the tone from the top determines whether the people are going to take it or not.
“Go to Rwanda and see, the tone from the top is very clear that if you misbehave you face it. So, the first thing we do is to ensure that we have leadership which is committed to doing things. That’s why many Ghanaians’ including myself believed the President when he said “I’ll protect the public purse” and he said that “if you want to make money don’t come to the government, go to the public sector” so we know this is the guy who is not going to spare anyone,” Mr. Domelevo indicated.
He, however, continued that, “the promises and rhetorics” of the President prior to assuming office and during his early days in power “are far higher than what we are seeing on the ground and disciplinary measures are swiftly put in place against those who don’t belong to the group but there are some people who we can all see clearly that this guy is committing atrocities or infractions and he/she continuously gets away with it.”
Substantiating his position that the buck for curbing corruption stops with the President, the former Auditor-General who has been in public service for some decades disclosed that “whenever there is a change in government public servants they sit back and watch whether it’s going to be business as usual or there is going to be a change. After a few months they say, it’s business as usual [and] you see the misbehaviour starts.”
