An ex-appointee of the Mahama administration, Dr Clement Apaak, has dared the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Prof Stephen Adei to drag members of the erstwhile Mahama government to the Office of the Special Prosecutor or the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO) if he has any evidence to prove that they were corrupt while in office, as he has been persistently claiming.
The lawmaker has, therefore, asked the former rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), to provide evidence to back his claims and forward the proof to the relevant institutions such as the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service or the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), for action.
Professor Adei recently told Class FM that corruption under the John Mahama-led administration was very high, a situation he said cost the country significant progress in its development agenda.
He noted that Mr Mahama eroded all the gains of the John Agyekum Kufuor administration, including prospects in the oil sector, following the oil find during the Kufuor era.
Prof Adei said “Between 2008 and 2011, there was renewed hope. In 2007 the oil was discovered and there has been some systematic progress, some foundations were being laid.
“By 2011, the economy was growing by 14 per cent per annum and everybody thought that a new dawn of Ghana had come.
“Unfortunately,” he added, “That hope was totally shattered, and by the time His Excellency President John Mahama was leaving office, we were back almost into the ditch or into the doldrums.
“There was so much corruption, there was so much inflation, there was so much debt, the growth had tumbled to less than four per cent and every indicator was down.
“I think that it has been one of the pains for those of us who have watched our development. I thought that by 2011, for once, we were not going back but we went back so badly.
“Then the arrogance and the impudence. I have never seen us in that bad state during the fourth republic.”
Responding to Prof Adei, the MP for Builsa South said in a statement issued on Friday, 25 January 2019 that: “Folks, please tell Prof Adei that if he has any evidence pointing to acts of corruption and those who engaged in such acts when the previous government was in office, he should file complaints with the BNI, EOCO, CID or better yet the OSP”.
Dr Apaak said Prof Adei has made all kinds of “baseless allegations against JM [John Mahama] and his appointees when our party was in power. I had assumed that having been rewarded by NADAA [Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo] for maligning JM and his government, he would have stopped his concocted allegations, but no”.
Dr Apaak said it is worth pointing out that: “Prof Adei is now part of an NPP government in which alleged corrupt appointees are cleared by the President himself. The government he is a part of has appointed unprecedented numbers of family, friends etc., to various positions in government and the public sector, the most nepotistic government in the history of Ghana”.
He continued: “Yet, it was Prof who accused then-President JM of appointing one of every four persons he appointed from his region, his background, totally untrue but a claim he said was based on research. I challenged him to share the research findings with all of us by putting it out in the public domain. Guess what? He never did. It didn't exist, a phantom, it was not true, he had no research to back his claims that one of every four JM appointees was from his background. It couldn't be till the end of time, JM never did such”.
Dr Apaak further accused Prof Adei of deliberately being silent on alleged corruption cases under the Akufo-Addo administration, yet quick to paint a gloomy picture about the past government.
“Prof Adei seems oblivious to current alleged acts of corruption. He has no problem with the appointment of 111 Ministers, 998 Presidential Staffers, shiploads of CEOs and Heads of Agencies. But why should Prof Adei care about rot under the NPP, he is no longer just a citizen but a government appointee, Chairman of our National Development Planning Commission (NDPC)”.
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