Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, has called on Ghanaian citizens to keep talking against corruption.
Commenting on Madam Cecilia Dapaah’s “stolen money” case, he argued that Ghanaians were not talking enough against corruption.
According to him, the more citizens talk, the better the fight against corruption gets.
“It is good we keep talking because a problem well diagnosed is half solved. So if we don’t talk, we are not likely to get the best talk, we are not likely to get the best solutions. So we have to keep talking. We are not talking enough at all. We are not talking enough about corruption because corruption is swallowing us. It is all over the place.”
Martin Kpebu
He thus urged Ghanaians to increase their participation in the fight against corruption.
“So we need to ratchet up the conversation on public corruption front and center of all our public discourse. We are not talking enough, unbridled.”
Martin Kpebu
He thus urged that citizens speak out and join the public call for justice to be served on Cecilia Dapaah’s case.
He further alleged that a presidential staffer has similarly lost some GHS 1. 8 million.
“Look, just three days ago, I heard another senior presidential staffer that a million dollars was stolen from his phone. People are trying to keep it quiet but we have to talk. A presidential staff, it is close to 2 million dollars was just stolen from his phone. So wow!”
Martin Kpebu
Hence, Mr. Martin Kpebu demanded the houses of ministers and officers of the president be searched.
“So you see why we keep repeating that let’s search the officers at the presidency, let’s search the ministers. Search them! Yes, we have made a report so by sitting here and reporting that we heard they’ve monies in their homes, that’s a report.”
Martin Kpebu
According to him, if the state refuses to take that action, then the state will not be fighting corruption.
“Monies are in their homes. If we don’t do this we are not fighting corruption. If we don’t search all the ministers we are just playing. We will push back. We have to fight. We are men. If we won’t to fight, forget it.
“We don’t have the right mindset for fighting corruption. The larger majority of us, because they don’t have access to much information and all that they say, oh but he is a big man.”
Martin Kpebu
He admitted his demands were very revolutionary but the nation had no other option. He urged the Inspector General of Police to take charge of the process.
He added that a democracy is better built when people speak up. He underscored that those who speak up will pay a price unjustifiable, however.
He accused the governing NPP government of turning around on its position on the over-reliance on sole sourcing as a corrupt practice.
“As far as I am aware, certain report I saw, different people have different accounts. Somebody said about 80% of contracts that have been awarded so far under this regime fall under sole-sourcing or single-sourcing procurement. I will get time to verify but at least we all accept that sole-sourcing is still a huge problem feeding corruption.
“When these guys (NPP) were in opposition they said sole-sourcing is thievery under the Mahama administration. So we expected that when they came, they would reduce it.”
Martin Kpebu
He further indicated his push for public officers to publish their assets before they assume office.
“Earlier in the week we had a big conversation about asset declaration. We are trying to push so that under the new bill, every public officer will publish his assets when the assets have been declared. We were asking for it to be online on a website so the cost comes down.”
Martin Kpebu
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