Political strategist and leading member of the governing National Democratic Congress, Mr Seth Ofori Ohene, has warned the opposition New Patriotic Party against rejoicing over the country’s poor scores on the 2011 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index.
The NPP, he said, cannot stand any strict scrutiny in regard to their commitment to fighting corruption and that their record on the subject is at best, abysmal.
He was speaking as a panelist on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Saturday on Transparency International’s 2011 CPI report, which indicates that the country has retrogressed from 4.1 to 3.9.
The Communication Director of the NPP Nana Akomea, who was also on the show listed a litany of instances he said were clear cases of corruption and that the worsening corruption situation in the country had only been exemplified by the report.
He said the government’s duplicitous mantra of fighting corruption had been exposed by the CPI report.
But Mr Seth Ofori debunked Nana Akomea’s assertions, threatening to expose the exceedingly corrupt tendencies that pervaded the erstwhile Kufuor administration.
He said evidence abound about state institutions that were paralysed because of corrupt activities of some members of the government, refraining from mentioning names.
He however maintained President J.E.A. Mills has a pact with the people of Ghana to reverse the trend and make good his promise to aggressively fight corruption.
He reminded the president that he (President Mills) will account to the people in next year’s elections and must be seen to be taking the fight against corruption more seriously.
The former Deputy Director – later Director – of Communications for the NDC, also made a passionate appeal to the Asantehene to not abandon the search for lasting solution to the Dagbon crises.
Mr Seth Ohene Ofori said given the eminent stature of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, he was central to finding a traditional solution to the internecine conflict.
The Asantehene last week publicly expressed exasperation over what he says are interference with efforts of the Committee of Eminent Chiefs – which he chairs – at resolving the intractable conflict, by political parties – a situation the Asantehene believes is negatively affecting the search for peace.
Otumfuo warned the political parties to back off and allow him and the others to resolve the matter.
In agreeing with him that there had been some political interference, Nana Akomea said the NDC upon assumption of office neglected the Otumfuo Committee which had chalked up some successes in terms of getting the two gates in the Dagbon crisis – Abudu and Andani Gates – to agree on a roadmap to peace, and pursued a rather adversarial process by hauling people, mainly from the Abudu Gate, before court.
Nana Akomea said it was only when the criminal case collapsed – as it was bound to – that the government rather belatedly went back to appeal to Otumfuo and his colleagues to revive the traditional process.
Seth Ofori vehemently disagreed with Nana Akomea, insisting that at no point did the NDC abandon the traditional process. He said the pursuit of the criminal aspects of the murder of the Ya-Na and others did not detract from the process led by the Asantehene.
He appealed to Otumfuo to recognize that politicians – who wield significant influence – are certainly needed if the committee is to achieve any substantial results but maintained that any politician who negatively influences the process must by be exposed.
“We must all try to revise our political discourse,” he said, to ensure that “we don’t make public comments that will” exacerbate the situation.