President Akufo-Addo says he is so far satisfied with the fight he mounted against corruption when he assumed office in January 2017. According to him, Ghana has now moved up in the corruption rankings and this attests to the good work he has done.
President Akufo-Addo, who was speaking in an interview with the Cable News Network (CNN) was asked to comment on his fight against corruption and what he had achieved.
“We’ve gone up several notches since I came into office, because we are dealing with these matters at the basic level,” he responded.
“For instance, the anti-corruption institutions of our country, when I came into office, were very poorly resourced. You can talk all you want about corruption. They go and make all the beautiful statements, but if the instruments at your disposal for dealing with are weak and blunt, you will get no results,” he added.
Still on corruption and its fight, the President was also asked whether the former Auditor General Daniel Yao Domelevo was indeed forced out of office and he responded as follows:
“There are laws in our country. The Auditor General, like me, should be the first to recognise there are laws in our country. There’s a time for retiring, which is prescribed by statute. They’re not my making.
“If you’re 60 years old you’re no longer supposed to be able to work in the public service. The Auditor General came to 60 years old and had to retire. So, the expression and I say so very much respectfully, of forcing out, he was not forced out of office. He left office by the operation of law”.
The rather brief interview on CNN ended on the steps the President was taking against illegal mining. In answering the question, President Akufo-Addo indicated that government was determined to come to grip with the menace, discussing further the directive he gave last week for the Ghana Armed Forces to act.
“So, we are having to take some very strong measures to try to come to grips with it,” he concluded.
The interview also touched on twitter’s resolve to have its Africa headquarters sited in Ghana, describing that and others as a reflection that foreign investors hold Ghana as a stable nation. He spoke on what the government was doing to attract more investors.
He said: “What we are trying to do here in Ghana is that we are trying to create a level playing field for businesses. Whether foreign or domestic so that people can feel free, feel very confident about investing in our economy because first of all we are trying to manage the economy in such a way that there is stability in the economy and in the way businessmen and individuals can make decision.
“We are creating in Ghana an atmosphere, an ecosystem that allows…before Twitter came, Google [came] last year, I believe it was 2019, established its first artificial intelligence centre in Africa, in Ghana. This is some 18 months even before Twitter came. They are recognising that the Ghanaian state is stable.”
The post I’m Satisfied With My Fight Against Corruption appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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