Victor Smith Calls For Public Inquiry on JAK

The Special Aide to ex-President Rawlings, Victor Smith has called on the minority leadership in Parliament to make true a publicly professed intent to cause the president Mr. J.A. Kufuor to be brought to face a public enquiry for his inability to do anything about the serious allegations of corruption that appears to have engulfed his government.

Naming about two hundred of such cases which he said had emanated from the media and the general public, Mr. Smith who said he spoke for Mr. Rawlings said it is only when our parliament assumes roles such as this and identified itself separate from the executive that equity and such pronouncements as 'zero tolerance for corruption could be guaranteed.

Speaking to the Network Herald, Mr. Smith said the level of corruption in Ghana today could be attributed to the silence of government that it is probably being misconstrued for consent. He said the people could only sustain hope and work to improve the lot of the country if they were not taken for granted by leaders who receive their mandate from the people but turn against them when they get hold of power.

Mr. Smith said any move to halt any process to put the President before a parliamentary enquiry as suggested by the minority would be an unhealthy attempt to derail the democratic process the country is going through. He was optimistic that the country would have given Africa and indeed the world a test case for democracy if the move were allowed, claiming it could even forestall events like military adventurism in the form of coups adding that the only way of stemming the tide of corruption and nation wrecking should be by constitutional measures such as parliamentary enquiry.

He accused the Kufuor administration of refusing to learn any lessons from the uprisings of June 4 and 31st December, events that he said erupted as a natural consequence of the corruption and economic hardship in the country at the time.