Fight against corruption: President-elect constitutes ORAL committee …to recover corruption proceeds

The President-Elect John Dra­mani Mahama has constituted a five-member committee as a preparatory measure towards the rollout of the ‘Operation Recover All Loot’ (ORAL) project.

The mandate of the team is to among other things receive and gather information from mem­bers of the public and other sources on suspected acts of corruption,” says the spokesperson for the John Mahama Transition Team, Felix Kwakye Fosu in a statement signed and issued in Accra yesterday.

It named the North Tongu Member of Par­liament (MP), Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, as the chair with former Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo, a retired Commissioner of Police (COP), Nathan Kofi Boakye, private legal practi­tioner, Martin Kpebu, and investigative journalist Raymond Archer as members of the committee.

“Anti-corruption and Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) as a major plank, formed a core part of H.E. John Mahama’s policy platform in his 2024 campaign and he intends to hit the ground running on these commitments,” the statement said.

The work of the committee would be geared towards the fulfilment of the campaign pledge of Mr Mahama to hold persons in government accountable.

The NDC in its manifesto explained that the ORAL is a comprehensive programme to investi­gate cases of corruption, recover misappropriated state resources and prosecute offenders.

Meanwhile, the Mahama Transition Team has warned it would not honour some last minute actions of the current government when he takes over the reins of government on January 7.

Mr Ofosu explained that despite an agreement reached with the government side that last minute recruitments, payments and such other actions be cleared with the Joint Transition Team, the gov­ernment continues to take such decisions without recourse to the agreement.

“The Transition Team of the President-elect wishes to state emphatically, that given the bad faith displayed by the government, all these payments, recruitments, transfers and promo­tions, some of which have been backdated, will be reversed and, where necessary public officials responsible for them held to strict account when a formal transfer of power takes place,” the state­ment warned.

If further cautioned all public officials to resist pressure from the outgoing political actors to engage in these acts or face severe consequences when Mr Mahama assumes office.

But Information Minister, Fatima Abubakar, has earlier dismissed the existence of any such agreement for payments and recruitments to be subjected to the scrutiny of the Joint Transition Team arguing that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s mandate was yet to end.

“Regarding concerns about ongoing recruitment and payments, it was noted that the government’s term expires at midnight January 6, 2025.

“These recruitment processes and payments have received the relevant statutory approvals and have not proven to be illegal,” she said in a state­ment on Friday, December 13, 2024

 BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI

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