Team ORAL is a complete waste of our time if their work is only to receive information – Governance Expert

A governance expert, Kwasi Yirenkyi, has said that the formation of Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) is a complete waste of everybody’s time if their work is just to receive information about suspected acts of corruption and pass it on to the state bodies for investigations. 

He suggested that units within the state bodies such as the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Criminal Investigative Department (CID), and National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), should have been created with a team of experts to handle this siruation

He was reacting to the clarification provided by President-elect John Mahama that the team is not going to investigate anybody.

Mr Mahama clarified that the team is only a focal point to revive information on acts of corruption by officials for onward submission to the state bodies to act on them.

He said “With regards to ORAL, I announced the preparatory committee and people are confused. We are receiving a lot of information on things that are going wrong, corruption scandals and all that., some send me texts on my phones, some call me, others pass through other people. We want a focal point where all the evidence can be directed so that they can assemble the evidence once we come into office.

“ORAL is not going to be investigating people, it is going to gather evidence and pass on the evidence to the institutions that are supposed to do that kind of work. If people have information that they think is useful in the fight against corruption, pass it on to the team.  the team is not expecting any payment, there is no budget associated with it.”

But speaking to some journalists in Accra on Friday, Mr Yirenkyi said “I am quite surprised that the team’s work is just to receive the information and pass them on to the bodies. This is a waste of our time. My point is that things should be done differently in this country by the incoming administration. We have had enough of misgovernance over the past years and we want new ways of doing things.

“Fighting corruption is good, we must all support that but the question is how do we fight corruption and win? We can only win the fight when we follow due process. There is EOCO, NIB, the Police or CID are there to do that, at least we can have units within these state institutions mandated by law to do the work that this ORAL team is supposed to do.”

Meanwhile, the team ORAL has today Friday, December 20 received the full dossier on the National Service ghost names scandal.

This was announced by the leader of the team, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on Friday, December 20.

“We are extremely grateful to The Fourth Estate and the Media Foundation for West Africa for the presentation and their exceptional patriotism. Together, we shall reset Ghana and recover all loot,” he wrote on his X page.

The post Team ORAL is a complete waste of our time if their work is only to receive information – Governance Expert first appeared on 3News.

Read Full Story