The President-elect, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated one of his initial priorities would be to establish the Office of a Special Prosecutor as part of measures to deal with corruption.
The move, according to him was intended to "separate politics from criminal investigations."
Nana Addo won last week’s Presidential Elections convincingly by a 54 per cent margin as against incumbent President John Mahama’s 44 percent, a first time a President has failed to win re-election in Ghana.
In his first media interview with the BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong which was monitored by Graphic Online, Nana Addo talked about his top priorities as President.
Tackling corruption
A big part of Nana Addo’s presidential campaign was about uprooting corruption and when Akwasi Sarpong asked him how he intends to deal with that and does he intend to prosecute people from the previous administration, Nana Addo said: “We have decided that as much as possible we want to take the politics out of it.”
He said they have put out a number of ideas which were in their [NPP] manifesto and in the things that “I’m saying about institutional reforms, personal examples that myself and leaders of our party and government have to give, it’s a mix of ideas that we believe will go a long way to reducing the incidents of corruption in our national life.”
Special Prosecutor
This, according to Nana Addo was to ensure that, “screams of witch-hunting etc. don’t arise by establishing an Office of Special Prosecutor of somebody who will be independent of the Executive and somebody whose remits will be to investigate and tackle issues of corruption.”
“… and hopefully that person is going to be somebody who commands respect of the society and at the same time has an independent mind to make the decisions.”
“What we have to be careful of in our situation is, one, to witch-hunt, but at the same time, we ought not to give the impression that those of us in political life are somewhat have some sort of immunity from investigation merely because we are politicians, I don’t think that will be right, we are citizens of Ghana first and foremost," he noted.
Economy
Nana Addo also indicated his plans to tackle the economy saying turning around the economy would be his top priority.
When asked how he felt about winning the elections, he said, “First of all I was grateful to Ghanaians for giving me the opportunity and also for the fact that the issues that I thought were the issues facing our people have been endorsed by them, that I was right in my analysis of where we are and what we needed to do and what the problems were.”
“I don’t want to sound smart but it is a certain satisfaction for a politician when your analysis is proven right by events.”
When asked what were his top priorities, Nana Addo said, “It has to be to get our economy moving again. The Ghanaian economy has been in a nose-dive for the last five years, low growth, widespread unemployment, huge debts, that’s the reality of our situation in Ghana, and especially the unemployment among the youth has reached alarming proportions and if we don’t find a method of dealing with it, our country will … be running towards all kinds of problems along the line.”
Appointees
Giving hints of who was likely to be part of his government, Nana Addo said his appointees have to have the fundamental connect to the group of ideas that are set out in the manifesto.
“Secondly of court, their competence, their capacity to master the briefs that are going to be given to them and carry them out.”
“Thirdly the commitment to the Ghana Project, the loyalty to Ghana, you are coming to work for the people of Ghana and not for yourself.”
Source: Daily Graphic
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I BEG TO DIFFER. THOSE WHO ARE SAYING THEY CANNOT PROSECUTE OFFICIALS OF THE MAHAMA GOVERNMENT BECAUSE IF NPP DOES, THEY WOULD BE ASKED TO GO AFTER PEOPLE WHO STOLE MONEY IN THE KOFFOUR GOVERNMENT. THIS IS A BASELESS ARGUMENT. AM SAYING THIS BECAUSE WHEN NDC CAME INTO POWER, IT TRIED TO PROSECUTE SOME NPP OFFICIALS WHO SERVED IN THE KUFFOUR GOVERNMENT. HOWEVER, WE MUST KNOW THAT YOU CANNOT JUST STAND UP AND START PROSECUTING PEOPLE AS THERE MUST BE AN EVIDENCE OF WRONG DOING AGAINST THE PERSON. SO THE FACT THAT NDC COULD NOT PROSECUTE ANY NPP OFFICIAL WHO SERVED IN KUFFOUR'S GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE OF WRONG DOING THAT IMPLICATED THEM DOES NOT SUGGEST THAT NPP CANNOT PROSECUTE NDC OFFICIALS WHO SERVED IN THE MAHAMA GOVERNMENT. NDC OFFICIALS WHO SERVED IN THE MAHAMA GOVERNMENT AND HAVE CAUSED FINANCIAL LOSS TO THE STATE WOULD BE PROSECUTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW. AND IF ANY INDIVIDUAL THINKS THAT HE KNOWS ANY NPP OFFICIAL WHO SERVED IN THE KUFFOUR'S GOVERNMENT AND HAVE ALSO CAUSED FINANCIAL LOSS TO THE STATE AND HAS EVIDENCE TO PROVE AT THE LAW COURT CAN GO TO COURT TO SEEK JUDGEMENT LIKE MR. MARTIN AMIDU DID. THAT IS THE LAW.
Thimking about: - Woyome scabdal -GYEEDA - SADA -SUBA -ISOFOTON -Bus Branding - Burkina Wall Martin Amidu all the way...
This is use1ess news at the moment. Both the president elect and the going would have to work harder to secure our peace today before they think of tomorrow. Cant you see that the nation is becoming lawless. Where are the police when toll booths are being set ablaze? They are afraid to act because they do not know whose boys they would be arresting. But hey, lawlessness is lawlessness and the police must not look on unconcerned. Their weapons are not for nothing. They must remain apolitical and crack the whip otherwise the nation is burning.
go to the harbour hmmmmm
he cant just tackle people from JM governemnt because if he does hmmmmmm then it means he has to tackle kuffour government and maybe even kuffour which im sure he is not ready to do. i think whats important to him is ti make sure people dont steal again but not to prosecute former government. i think he will prosecute woyomw though. lol
i dont know why people are saying he is gonna go after mahamma's adminstratation. he has to go after kuffour's adminstration as well because during kuffor time some ministers stoe a lot of money. and i believe he once said he will fight corruption of his government not the past because he doesnt want to create any chaos so u people should stop with the mahama people
im a strong NPP supporter and happy nana won. but we all know if he appoints someone for corruption they are not going to prosecute ndc members because if they do they will be ask to prosecute some people during kuffour time. i think he is only appointing so no one steals again not to prosecute past minsters.
Please appoint Mr Amidu, i believe he will do a good job. I am sure he will be impartial. he will go after anyone whether NPP or ndc. please appoint him.
Pick Jerry Rawlings for that and i know people will think twice before meddling with our Money .
Yep