Mahama Using Best Strategy - Odamtten

If corruption were to be a military battle, President John Dramani Mahama would have been the Ghanaian namesake of Napoleon Bonaparte, the new chief executive of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly, has declared. Mr. Isaac Nii Ashie Odamtten, who was confirmed in office this Wednesday, explains that just as Bonaparte, the famous French military general, is unparalleled in history as a military strategist, so is President Mahama outstanding in the strategic fight against corruption. �Mahama�s fight against corruption is like an unfolding plot in watching as he tightens the bolts one by one,� Hon. Odamtten marveled in anti-interview with our correspondent, shortly after he was overwhelmingly endorsed by the assembly. The President recent announced that some people indicted in the GYEEDA scandal have been picked up by the BNI, he said, is a small suspense in the unfolding storyline on the Mahama regimes fight against corruption. �You know, apart from the fact that it has silenced the detractors of the President who wanted the whole world to believe that the second committee he set up to look into the GYEEDA reports was meant to water down the contents of the first committee�s report, the announcement has brought marvel to the rest of Ghanaians about how tactical the President is about fighting corruption,� Mr. Odamtten said. Recently, after detractors of the President had had a field day preaching that the President had set up the second GYEEDA committee because he wanted to water down the first committee�s report so that some people indicted would be shielded, the President came out to explain that he had set up the committee to look into the first committees report because he did not want to risk a dismissal of charges brought against any culprit by the courts. In the past, Government had rushed to court with evidence of corruption against suspects without cross-checking and firming up the evidence first, only for the courts to dismiss the cases. �If the President had allowed the criticisms to drive into a mad rush into court and the court had dismissed the cases against the culprits, the critics would have said the government was incompetent, but now Ghanaians have seen that the President is competent enough to want to make sure double sure before he goes to court,� the new Tema boss pointed out. Hon. Odamtten further pointed out that the calculated action that President Mahama has taken on the GYEEDA report is just a minute part of a very strategic fight against corruption by this regime. He enumerated that the President has set up the Sole Commission on Judgement Debts to look into the issue of judgement debts in response to critics political tantrums on account of the GH51 million paid to Alfred Agbesi Woyome. �Thanks to that Commission now Ghanaians know the Woyome payment is not the only scandalous judgement debt pay-out,� he contended. As part of the Judgement Debt Commission�s work, it has come to light that GNPC�s drill ship, Discoverer 511, was sold by ministers in the Kufuor regime in 2001 under very questionable circumstances. In order to stem corruption among launched a code of conduct for his ministers, which is on it's way to Parliament to be passed into law. In the coming years therefore, ministers who are caught involved in corruption will not only be sacked; they will have specific anti-corruption laws to answer to. Hon. Odamtten pointed out that the Mills regimes constitutional review initiative, which has spawned a number of Bills, including a proposition to turn the burden of proof of corruption from the person making the allegation to the one being alleged to have been corrupt, is in the process of being tidied up. As part of the laws, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice will be empowered to investigate all corruption cases against Public sector workers, even in the absence of a formal compliant, while a tight regulation will be put on the amount of gifts that ministers can receive!. �It is amazing that all these are unfolding right before the eyes of Ghanaians, less than a year into the administrator of John Mahama. Tell me, which President ever did so much to stem corruption in less than a year?� hon. Odamtten said. The Tema MCE said compared to other loudmouthed, corruption lip-servicing showmen who have come before John Mahama, the current President is outstanding. �He is a smart strategist; quiet but very effective. Mahama is to corruption in Ghana, as Napoleon Bonaparte is to military strategist,� he said.