The Programs Manager of Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Addah has advised the two major political parties in the country, National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP), to refrain from arguing over which of them is more corrupt.
Speaking in an interview, Ms. Mary Addah urged that instead of the endless quarrel, NPP and NDC should devise strategies that will enable them combat the corruption scourge head-on.
“We should rather depart from the argument of who is more corrupt, but then put in place measures to fight corruption, to hold the bull by the horns and make some progress.”
Mary Addah
The concerns of the Programs Manager of GII comes in the wake of both parties accusing each other of being corrupt.
According to Ms. Addah, both the NDC and NPP should focus on actuating the various institutions in charge of corruption as well as the policy frameworks to mitigate the corruption plague, if not, completely eliminating it.
“What we [the public] want to see is just that we [political parties] put in measures to activate all the frameworks and the institutions capacitated enough to fight corruption.”
Mary Addah
As the constitution specifies, Ms. Mary Addah noted that what she expects is that no one supports corruption.
“What we want as a people, is that we don’t want anybody to encourage corruption as the Constitution spells out. The state shall make sure that we eradicate corruption and the abuse of power.”’
Mary Addah
Ms. Addah further stated that the situation where NPP and NDC blame each other when elected into office, is not going to assist the progress of the country.
“Today, if we are going to be giving examples, we will have examples of what the NDC didn’t do and we will give examples of what the NPP is not doing, and that is what they are both doing, which is unfortunate.”
Mary Addah
The Programs Manager of GII further advised both parties to examine the data from reports of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) to ascertain the country’s performance in terms of corruption.
“The CPI says our fight against corruption has not been impressive over the years. It is a fact that when you look at the CPI scores in 2014 or thereabouts, we had our highest score which is 48. It is also a fact that in 2016, we dropped, in 2017 we had a very huge drop and that is significant per the measure of the CPI. Again, when you take the Afrobarometer, you realize that citizens’ perception and citizens’ experiences of corruption are increasing.”
Mary Addah
Ghanaians are tired of corruption
In a press conference on Monday, August 30, 2021, the National Communications officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi asserted that Ghanaians are tired of the high rate of corruption in the country. Hence, they have resolved in their minds to vote against NPP in 2024 general elections.
He added that the citizens failure to vote the NPP government out of power would mean further perpetuation of corruption which will lead to dissipation of the public fund.
“Anything short of that will spell doom for the public purse which will be subjected to further abuse should their mandates be renewed beyond 2024.”
Sammy Gyamfi
Read Also: Ghanaians are craving to vote NPP out- Sammy Gyamfi
