How John Mahama fought corruption as President

Many years ago I was listening to a man of God preaching powerfully on radio. He gave direction to his church for a prayer service, and promised that the blind will see, the lame will walk, and other problems would be solved. I was, however, not too much enthused about the way the pastor pronounced words with letters “L” and “R”.

He called out his phone number as zerlo, two, four, four, six, zerlo, seven, seven, zerlo, one. Even though I was planning to attend his service, I almost got discouraged with his “L” and “R”, but on a second thought I changed my mind since spirituality has nothing to do with the way people pronounce words.

I went to the church the next day, and in the midst of prayers, a member of the prayer warrior team touched my shoulder and started praying in tongues: “Shatakayaba, sokoto kaya babababa, my brother, you’ll walk today okay,” he said. I didn’t understand what he meant; and even though I have no disability problem, with faith, I shouted, “Amen!” The prayer session was over, and when I got out of the church, my transport money had been stolen and I had to walk home, then I understood the prayer warrior.

Hehehehe, folks, today is Happy E-levy Day, watch your wallets oo else you will walk today. Somebody shout, halleluyah eii!

On a more serious note, I’m deeply worried about the fact that some Ghanaians, including Religious Leaders, Civil Society Groups and the Press made so much noise about corruption under President Mahama’s regime.

Sadly and unfortunately enough, the Akuffo-Addo/Bawumia government is neck-deep in corruption, but we are not hearing a quarter of the noise we heard when Mahama was president, even though he didn’t spare his own who were caught in the corruption net which is extremely contrary to what we are seeing today. It. Is. Not. Fair.

It will however, interest you to know that Mahama was one of the leading Heads of State who fought corruption, and I will prove it now!

President Mahama in his quest to fight corruption, developed a National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP for short) in 2012, which was adopted by the Parliament of Ghana following intensive consultations at the national, regional and district levels to combat corruption in Ghana. NACAP covered the control of corruption in both the public and private sector. It embraced the activities of State and non-State actors regardless of gender, age, local or international status.

A High Level Implementation Committee (HiLIC) for NACAP, chaired by the Chief of Staff, drew its membership from a cream of institutions, agencies and civil society groups comprising representatives from CHRAJ, Office of the President, Parliament of Ghana, Economic and Organised Crime Office, National Development Planning Commission, Public Services Commission, Attorney-General’s Department, Africa Peer Review Mechanism (Ghana), Ministry of Finance, Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, Ghana Integrity Initiative, Centre for Democracy and Development, Private Enterprises Federation, Development Partners and Anti-Corruption Experts and Practitioners.

Furthermore, one significant achievement of his government which is unprecedented in the history of Ghana is the fight against payroll fraud. Pragmatic measures was taken in this area of fraud and abuse of State resources through the design and implementation of effective preventive measures in the public sector financial management systems. It is heartwarming to note that this intervention yielded fruits, and a good number of “ghost names” were removed from our payroll, and huge sums of money was recovered.

With regard to the National Service Scheme investigations, the BNI and the Attorney General concluded investigations into allegations of corruption (padding of salaries or “ghost names”) and prosecutions started before he left office.

Additionally, 163 personnel of the Scheme were dismissed and over 18.5million cedis was recovered to the State, and 33 officials including the former Executive Director and his Deputy were arraigned before Court while about 130 others were to be prosecuted.

In terms of GYEEDA, a number of persons, including the former CEO, were prosecuted. Still on GYEEDA, with regard to loans illegally granted to some service providers, the State recovered an amount of GHC 20,449,368.44 in relation to the various modules from Asongtaba Cottage Industries, RLG Communications and Craft PRO Ltd.

Other high profile corruption cases, or cases of causing financial losses which were ongoing before he left office are The Republic vrs Alfred Agbesi Woyome, The Republic vrs Ben Atsu Elleblu, Robert Azumah, and Christopher Elleblu and many others.

Kikikikikikiki, I asked some people yesterday whether it is true that corruption started from Adam; they told me they don’t know, and that I should ask K4 and the NPP. But whatever the case, I don’t think Adam and Eve would be happy with a corruption tag. Hehehehe, I reject that on their behalf. Somebody shout, Amen!

By Anthony Obeng Afrane