Former President John Dramani Mahama has expressed the need to intensify stakeholder efforts and engagement on the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).
According to him, this has become imperative considering the decline in Ghana’s performance on corruption surveys conducted by some institutions.
“We must also intensify stakeholder efforts and engagement on the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP). It is sad observing Ghana’s performance on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index score card after many years of NACAP’s existence. This is not how we programmed NACAP to be. NACAP can do better! And NACAP must do better!”
John Dramani Mahama
Mr Mahama stated that when he has the opportunity to lead the country in 2025, he will come with priceless experience to fix the “broken” nation. He revealed that he wants Ghanaians to build the Ghana they want together by writing – “not footnotes, not pages but chapters” in the anti-corruption history of the country.
“We must also uphold human rights, including freedom of expression and not be describing some journalists as terrorists.”
John Dramani Mahama
Delivering a keynote address at the University of Professional Studies, Accra on the theme: ‘Financing political campaigns the Ghana we Want: The Case for a more transparent and broad-based citizen participation’, the former President indicated that his agenda to “Build the Ghana We Want Together from 2025”, will involve far-reaching constitutional, political and governance reforms to restore confidence in the country’s democracy and governance systems.
He indicated that his party plans to take up and conclude the constitution review process that started under late President John Evans Atta Mills.
“The reforms will include a review of the controversial Article 71. I still believe that in this crisis period, Ghana can be managed with not more than 60 ministers. And to cut down on the number of officeholders and remove the disparities in privileges and emoluments.”
John Dramani Mahama
In his hopes of reviving the country, Mr Mahama iterated that he will scrap the payment of ex-gratia to members of the Executive and persuade other arms of government to accept same. He explained that those who oppose the scrapping of ex-gratia state so “explicitly instead of moving in meandering contours” in a failed attempt to trivialize this important promise.
“While I was determined to take this very action and others in the past through the implementation of the constitution review process, a legal challenge that was eventually determined too late in my tenure of office; and the NPP’s general opposition to the constitution review process made it impossible to proceed further with the review implementation phase.”
John Dramani Mahama
Mahama calls on NPP to join in on NDC’s plan to scrap ex-gratia
Following this, the NDC flagbearer hopeful called on the opposition NPP, to join him to form a consortium of the willing for both parties to succeed in scrapping the payment of ex-gratia. He emphasized that he has every confidence that an Independent Emoluments Commission can determine the conditions of service of all public officers, from the President to the lowest ranking public officer on government’s payroll.
“My brothers and sisters, that will constitute a true and proper ‘Single Spine’ to replace the current ‘Double Spine Salary System’ – where Article 71 office holders are on a different spine separate from other public sector workers.”
John Dramani Mahama
Furthermore, Mr Mahama made a case for a more transparent and broad-based citizen participation in the financing of Ghana’s political campaigns and launched a smart digital retail fundraising platform for his 2024 Campaign.
Expressing gratitude to the very robust fixed and wireless broadband his administration installed across the country, he noted that Ghana today has enough internet capacity to power digitalized applications. With this, he explained that it is his hope that through this innovative “smart kernel, political parties” can broaden and nurture many trees with abundant branches for resource mobilization.
“Surely and hopefully, such an intervention will address the dependency on a few individuals who finance political campaigns in return for favors – a recipe for corruption in any democracy. And if I may add, CSOs and other public-spirited organizations can also adopt this system of broad-based resource mobilization to fund their activities to limit the strictures that sometimes accompany donor-funded research and advocacy in developing countries such as Ghana.”
John Dramani Mahama
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