General News of Wednesday, 11 September 2019
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2019-09-11
NPP’s Communications Team, Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta
“Is that our first interest? Calling for blood to flow all the time? Or are we seeking to solve certain problems?”, these are questions posed at the National Democratic Congress (NDC) by a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s communications team, Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta.
Mr. Ofori-Atta was responding to suggestions by the NDC that the ruling government is doing very little, if anything at all, to deal with the subject of corruption under their administration.
The NDC has in previous times has tagged the President as a ‘clearing agent’ whose expertise is shifting the blame off his appointees called out for corruption.
Their arguments are that the President is allowing for fraudulent activities to go unpunished under his watch. In his defense, however, Mr. Akufo-Addo during an address at the annual Bar conference in Takoradi Tuesday said it is not in his place to punish offences relating to criminality and corruption, his is to refer cases to the appropriate investigative bodies and actions will be taken after.
Speaking on the issue on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana show, Mr. Ofori Atta said the President’s understanding of the law and legal processes is what influences his actions as far as these issues are concerned.
According to him, the President exercises judgement by following the right procedures rather than just acting recklessly because people are calling for it.
“If you are the Chief Executive of a company and something goes wrong and it must be investigated, and you the Chief Executive is asked to step aside, should you be destroyed? The first step is to get certain things out of the way, seems to me that the first thing we want to do is to get an investigation out of the way so you do things that will let the investigation take place, so you secure the facts about the situation, when you are clear about that, then you get the facts”, he said.
“Has President Akufo-Addo taken these steps in matters that have come forward? Clearly he has if there are issues that you think we should do, there’s nothing wrong with querying it, He understands the law and legal processes, he cannot allow ‘let the blood flow’ mentality to push the way we want to do things, we should let the systems work. The law must work and so you would want to do things that are lawful and proper”.
“In the process, you are bound to encounter hitches but the question is, on the records, Has President Akufo-Addo not done much much more to show that the processes are going to work?”, he added.
Meanwhile, he urged the NDC to quit promoting propaganda and to be objective in their criticism of the government and its decisions.
“When you want to now come and talk to the public about those issues that you think should be tackled, you want to come with an approach that will make people want to listen to you. The fact is, every time something is found out, your first call is always to rush to discredit the person who is found in the limelight of the situation”.
