I cannot assess the level of corruption in Akufo-Addo’s regime – Domelevo

Ghana’s Former Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo has stated that, it will be difficult for him to assess the level of corruption in the Akufo-Addo administration.

According to him, he is yet to conduct a comprehensive review of the current regime, therefore he cannot conclusively comment on the issue of corruption in the current government.

Speaking in an interview with Raymond Acquah on UpFront on Wednesday, Mr Domelevo explained that there are many corruption cases at the moment, and for the fact that he has not apprised himself of all of them, he cannot rate Ghana’s fight against corruption under the prevailing circumstances.

“It’ very difficult for me to give a mark or to say they’re doing well or they are not doing too well because I have not done a complete review. But there are one too many corrupt cases that are going on unattended to, which I think the government can do better than it has done so far”, he noted.

He added that, “there are several corrupt cases. Even starting from this year up till now, you’ve heard of scandals over scandals over scandals. There are a lot of them. I don’t want to be specific to say that this is the particular one which is disturbing me. But let me say that all corrupt practices are disturbing.

They all take resources out of the mouth of the people, they all create bad environments. You see how we’re suffering from flooding? Because somebody has the money and he has gone to build in the waterway and nobody can touch him because he’s untouchable. So we need to start fighting corruption correctly, and I think we’ll make progress”.

The former Auditor-General made these comments while discussing ‘Ghana’s Asset Declaration Regime’, with host Raymond Acquah.

He noted as part of his suggestions that, the executive arm of government must lead the way, when it comes to declaration of assets by public officials.

In his opinion, the Audit Service must also be well resourced for it to be able to track the assets of public officials, prior their assumption of office.

The conversation about the declaration of assets by state officials comes in the wake of public sentiments about a document, purported to be the will of the former Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie; popularly known as ‘Sir John’.

In a publication by the Fourth Estate’s Manasseh Azure, he disclosed a list of properties, owned by the late Forestry Commission Boss.

The list, which went viral on social media, raised concerns about how public officials amass wealth when they get into public service.

Reacting to this, the Lands Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, directed the Lands and Forestry Commissions to take appropriate actions over claims that the late former CEO of the Forestry Commission owns portions of lands at the Achimota Forest and Sakumono Ramsar Site.

Samuel Abdulai Jinapor said the two entities should consider any alleged ownership of lands at the said sites by the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John, as void.

A political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, has called on the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, to focus on investigating government officials who are alive, in his fight against the unlawful acquisition of lands.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Professor Gyampo posited that even though he is impressed with the efforts of the sector Minister, he must move away from probing cases of dead public officials.

According to him, dealing with officials who are alive will give more credibility to his quest to tackle the unlawful acquisition of lands in the country.

You are being cautiously hailed as an action man, and of course this is to be expected from a very young dynamo man with all the zeal. I have spoken to quite a number of well-meaning people in society on the Sir John land acquisitions and many seem unsure of what is really going on. Some are however happy with your swift intervention.

But I think your exuberance must be well targeted. Take note that it is easy to deal with dead men because they don’t and actually can’t talk. Probe deeper to see your colleague living souls who may have acquired lands they aren’t supposed to acquire”, Professor Gyampo advised.

“Should you be able to do this with same energy and zeal, you will have the full support and respect of the many discerning Ghanaians who are at the moment, cautiously optimistic about the sincerity of your swift interventions”, he added.

source: Paa Kwesi Schandorf