The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute (DI), Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, is questioning members of the ruling National Democratic Congress for their seeming silence over allegations of corruption raised against them by their party founder ex-president Jerry John Rawlings.
Mr Rawlings on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the 31st December 1981 coup that toppled the Dr. Hilla Limann administration stated that corruption in the country has risen to such an alarming rate as a result of the government’s unwillingness to bring to book corrupt past officials.
He alleged that Ghana is gradually becoming like Nigeria where corruption is institutionalized. Further, Mr Rawlings accused some bigshots around the president of trying to usurp his [President Mills’] power, mentioning Prof Kofi Awoonor who is the chairman of the Council of State as one of those people.
Mr Rawlings posited: “He (Mills) wanted to put some efficient person in some organization. When the person went to inspect the place, only to go and discover that somebody had already been put there. Who put him there? Prof Awoonor. That man had done his own appointment without reference to even the president.
“The man comes back and reports it to the president and the president says Prof Awoonor ‘ore haw me’”, to wit, the prof is worrying me.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme Monday, Mr Otchere-Darko wondered why those who have been accused by the former president have not come out to speak on the issue. “Clearly there are allegations being leveled against the President and his government in terms of corruption, yet for some reason, when Rawlings speaks, nobody in government wants to talk about it and he is leveling serious allegations of corruption… “Is it because it is true or they are afraid of him?” Gabby asked.
Before 2008, he continued, there was the fear that Mills was not going to be his own man and now Mr Rawlings by his statement is legitimizing that fear.
He noted “so he seems to be admitting that the President is not in control [but there are other conductors of the show] and those conductors are doing things that the President himself does not know.”
Gabby therefore stressed that “the President is not in charge, others are pulling the strings, but my question is really, is Rawlings’ issue with the fact that he is not the one that is pulling the strings and that somebody else is pulling the strings?”