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Mahama does not seek praise for corruption fight – Daniel Batidam

By MyJoyOnline
Politics Mahama does not seek praise for corruption fight – Daniel Batidam
MAY 26, 2016 LISTEN

President Mahama’s advisor on Governance and Corruption says the Ghanaian leader does not seek praise from anyone for his anti-corruption fights in the country.

Daniel Batidam says the continuous lament of President Mahama about how corruption is bleeding the nation and its economy is evident that he does not need to be given a pat on the back.

The former head of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) – the local chapter of Transparency International disclosed this in an interview with Joy News’ Manasseh Azure Awuni.

President Mahama was recently invited to an anti-corruption summit organized by the UK Prime Minister, David Cameroun in Britain. He was among some few Heads of State from Africa invited to the global summit.

However, many Ghanaians have questioned the commitment of the President to rooting out corruption in his government.

Even though the Ghanaian leader agreed in an interview with the BBC that he has not taken a bribe before as a person, many people are pointing to some key members of his government.

A probe into operations of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) in 2013 led to the revelation that about 429 million cedis had been paid to some sixteen service providers for services they had not delivered.

Later, the government said it had retrieved 14.5 million cedis as part of the “Illegal money paid to contractors of GYEEDA.

The government has also been hit by what is termed in Ghana as the “Smarttys bus branding saga.” A revelation that the rebranding of 116 Metro Mass buses cost the country the sum of 3.6 million cedis generated debate compelling the government to retrieve 1.5 million cedis from the wholly Ghanaian company which executed the contract, Smarttys Management, and productions.

Pointing to efforts aimed at retrieving money duped the country in the above scandals, Ghanaians believed President Mahama and his government have not done enough.

However, the anti-corruption crusader believed same.

Mr Batidam said “In 2014 a year after I said heads must roll, I sat in the studios of Joy FM and was asked whether I thought what had been retrieved for GYEEDA in relation to what had been lost was enough and I said it was not enough and more needed to be done.”

“Ghana has had a checkered history of continuously confronting the issue of corruption and this is also evidence of the kind of result that we have from our surveys that Ghana has participated in notably the Corruption Perception Index between 2009 and now we have moved from 39 to 48 that is 9 points,” he said.

“So even though we agree like many other countries that corruption is a problem we are working at it and I think we are making more progress so it would be strange and it would also not represent the fact of the situation,” he added.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | Email: [email protected]

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