The Communications Director at the Presidency Koku Anyidoho has condemned criticisms that President Mills was pretending to be unaware of widespread corruption and bribery at the Port.
The President, who stormed the Tema Port on Friday February 4, angrily directed the arrest of any of his appointees who peddle his name to secure influence of any kind.
This was after Investigative Journalist Anas Aremeyaw, had revealed in his latest video titled “Enemies of the Nation: The Dark Secrets of the Tema Port”, that some Government officials were aiding their cronies to evade huge taxes in the president’s name.
The President has thus backed the Acting Head of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority to take drastic actions necessary to rid the Ports of corruption.
But some critics have suggested the President was only being reactionary since a similar visit to the Port in the past did not deter the officers.
Mr. Koku Anyidoho vehemently disagrees.
“People like Appiah Ofori want the President condemned and nailed to the cross because it is believed that he knew something and he didn’t take remedial action. When he sat in Parliament and saw his colleagues take $5,000, why didn’t he make noise initially? Why did he condone it until later on before he told us his colleagues took those monies?”
“Aren’t we all surprised at the corruption at the Port? The stories of corruption at the Port have been doing the rounds for long. But it is only until two days ago, that we all saw for ourselves and got alarmed. Yes! The president was Commissioner for IRS for eight and a half years, and Vice President for four years. We hear and read about corruption until we saw. Who would have been able to believe that this level of corruption was going on at the port? And that people collect the bribe in a dancing mood with glee. So the President is surprised and hence this level of anger. And he made it point blank that it was disgusting and unacceptable and that this cannot continue”.
According to Mr. Anyidoho, the President’s earlier visit to the Port was only to admonish and appeal to the conscience of port officers based on reports of corrupt practices which he had heard.
The President has also been criticized for suggesting that the judiciary was not helping in punishing people perceived to be stealing from the State. He was referring to the release of persons who were arrested for their roles in Anas’ cocoa smuggling investigations at the Elubo border.
But Mr. Anyidoho thinks the President’s comment was not out of place.
“What the President is saying is that; let us not use technicalities to let people off the hook. Let us not use technicalities to allow corruption to move onto higher heights. If the whip had been cracked harder in the Elubo cocoa case, maybe we would not be seeing what we are seeing in Tema. That is why the President is appealing to the Ghana justice system to help us punish those who ought to be punished” he explained.
“We are going to install CCTV all over the long room. Those security men who were there before and condoning all these things, all those task forces have been collapsed and they have been thrown out. The President’s eyes are red and he is not going to relent in his fight to make sure that Port is cleaned up for us to get the revenue that we need to build a better Ghana” he said.