The New Patriotic Party (NPP) government will account for every money they have taken from the state, flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has vowed.
He has alleged that the Akufo-Addo-led government has stolen so much from the state, and has devised means to steal more even in their last year in office.
In an engagement with teacher unions in Koforidua –the Eastern regional capital — Tuesday, January 30, 2024, as part of his ‘Building Ghana Tour’ John Mahama said the controversial contract between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Finance Ministry and Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) is nothing but another avenue for the NPP government to steal from the state.
He expressed shock over the President’s rush to call for an audit
“Parliament is investigating it, the President has hurriedly gone to get KPMG to audit it. Whatever audit they do, I say we won’t accept or respect any agreement with SML. And for the money that they’ve taken already, we will hold them to account for,” he noted.
John Mahama indicated that the rate at which corruption is thriving in the country under Akufo-Addo has obliterated the shock with which Ghanaians hitherto reacted to corruption scandals.
“You cannot freeze a country like this. One would have thought that the corruption cases were enough but it’s even made Ghanaians numb. Now Ghanaians are not surprised again. Corruption does not shock Ghanaians the way it used to shock us. Today when there is a scandal people are like, “yabrɛ” (to wit we are tired). Because indeed we are all tired and so even in the twilight when you’re about to exit office, you’re just coming out with schemes to steal Ghanaians’ money,” he alleged.
The former President assured that such things cannot happen under an NDC administration steered by him.
“But I say that this won’t happen. An NDC government under me will not recognize this SML agreement,” he emphasised.
The comments came barely hours after the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International (TI), released the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) where Ghana scored zero for the fourth consecutive year.
Corruption Perceptions Index: Ghana stagnates with a score of 43 for 4th consecutive year
