TI Rubbishes Corruption Claims Against Mahama

Transparency International Rubbishes Akufo-Addo, Bawumia Over Corruption Claims Against Mahama

Transparency International (TI) has made total nonsense of spurious claims of corruption against President John Dramani Mahama by Mr. Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his protégé, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

In its latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI) launched yesterday, TI singled out Ghana and Senegal, two African countries, for praise regarding the good work that their governments and social partners are doing in the fight against the menace, a development that will certainly confound the desperate NPP duo.

“This report, arguably the most authoritative source of corruption surveys in the world, belies the spurious claims of certain media outlets a few months ago that Ghana had been ranked as the second most corrupt nation in Africa by Transparency International,” says Dr. Edward Omane Boamah, Communications Minister in a statement. The twice defeated NPP flagbearer and his running mate have made it a policy to tag President Mahama as being weak in fighting corruption. It was this agenda that pushed Dr. Bawumia to goof badly by blindly latching onto that false reportage in a bid to badmouth President Mahama and his government as usual. In an indecent haste to portray the NDC government as accommodating corruption, the NPP running mate shot himself in the foot when he flagrantly repeated the spurious media report that Ghana had ranked as the second most corrupt country in Africa in a Transparency International report.

The case has not been different with his boss, who has severally peddled similar untruths about the Mahama-led government.

Mr. Akufo-Addo is on record to have spread a palpable falsehood that the government had spent a whopping $10million in printing presidential diaries. He has also claimed, for example, that the Kasoa Interchange project is saddled with corruption because it has been overpriced.

It turned out however that the NPP flagbearer decided to go on that misleading tangent knowing fully well that apart from the overpass, the project has other components which include several roads, a school and clinic among others. It is not in doubt that Mr Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia believe in the credibility of Transparency International’s CPI reports, which the NPP running mate made copious reference to in that spurious claim of his in the recent past. Now that the same TI’s authentic report of the 2015 CPI is available and which tells the true story about the state of affairs in Ghana as far as the fight against corruption by President Mahama is concerned, we on The Catalyst can only wait to see if the NPP flagbearer and his running mate will eat humble pie and apologise to Ghanaians over their false claims.

Below is the full text of the Government’s Statement

GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO 2015 CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX (CPI)

Government has taken note of the latest report of the Corruption Perception Index launched earlier today. The report ranks Ghana 56th out of 168 countries with a score of 47. We acknowledge the singling out of Ghana and Senegal for praise in the report on efforts made by the respective governments on one hand and social partners on the other to combat the menace. This report, arguably the most authoritative source of corruption surveys in the world, belies the spurious claims of certain media outlets a few months ago that Ghana had been ranked as the second most corrupt nation in Africa by Transparency International. We note that though this performance is one point lower than that of 2014, it can be viewed within the context of the general performance of all countries. Ghana ranks 7th in Africa which means that apart from six African countries we performed better than all other countries on the continent and 112 countries worldwide. Given that this is a perception survey, it stands to reason that the views expressed by respondents were based on perceptions about the subject in the year under review. It also stands to reason therefore that the intense media focus on the allegations of corruption in the Judiciary as well as the repetition of some obviously false allegations against government in 2015 contributed to the perception. We are also mindful of the “paradox of exposure”- which creates a scenario where government’s efforts to expose and punish acts of wrongdoing such as the National Service Case, generates discussions among the populace creating a misleading impression of pervasive corruption when the opposite is in fact the case. We nonetheless commit and rededicate ourselves to the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan(NACAP). We shall continue to strengthen the relevant state institutions and work with Civil Society to win the war against corruption. We commend all stakeholders who have genuinely contributed to this enviable feat as proclaimed by Transparency International.

Signed: Edward K. Omane Boamah (Dr) (Communications Minister)