President-elect, John Dramani Mahama, has clarified that the mandate of the newly formed preparatory team for his government’s anti-corruption drive is to gather evidence of incidents and allegations of corruption from the public.
He explained that the core duty of the five-member team is to collect pieces of evidence of corruption, assemble them, and pass them on to the appropriate government authority for further investigations.
The former president, who has been re-elected for a second time, said the formation of the team became necessary after being inundated with allegations and acts of corruption committed by the current administration, by the public.
To set the pace and tone for his flagship anti-corruption campaign promise, Operations Recover All Loot (ORAL), which aims to salvage state resources misused by public officers, Mr. Mahama said he saw the need to establish a preparatory team.
He explained further that the team has no authority to conduct an investigation but to just liaise with the members of the public to gather evidence that will be handed over to the appropriate institution for thorough investigations and possible prosecution.
“We’re receiving a lot of information on things that are going wrong, or things, I mean, corruption scandals and all that. Some send me texts on my phone, some call me, others pass through other people,” Mr. Mahama explained at his office on Thursday when he met the Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana.
He continued that, “We want a focal point where all that evidence is directed so that they can assemble that evidence, and once we come into office, ORAL is not going to be investigating people. It’s going to gather the evidence, and pass on that evidence to the government institutions that are supposed to do that kind of work.”
Amidst the debate and misconception, the president-elect further clarified that the team is not for political witch-hunting as speculated by a section of the public.
“I don’t think that people should think that it’s a witch-hunting committee. They have no brooms to fly at night. I can assure people that it’s not meant to witch-hunt people,” he assured.
Corruption in Ghana has been described as not only a political and governance issue but also an economic crisis. Anti-Corruption institutions in Ghana and abroad have maintained that the menace costs the nation billions annually through embezzlement, inflated contracts, and misallocation of public funds.
These losses hinder vital investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure, stalling economic progress and exacerbating poverty.
With this new approach of Mahama to fight the canker, Ghanaians are anticipating a new wave of anti-corruption campaigns that ensures actionable evidence reaches institutions mandated to investigate and prosecute corruption, such as the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
The preparatory team is headed by the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. Other members are Daniel Domelevo, former auditor-general, Martin Kpebu, private legal practitioner, COP Nathan Kofi Boakye (rtd), and Raymond Archer, an investigative journalist.
