A former Minister in the immediate past National Democratic Congress (NDC) government has criticised Akufo-Addo’s government of bypassing due process and causing public trial of alleged corrupt public officials.
Inusah Fuseini, a former Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, and current MP for Tamale Central believes there is a sinister attempt by the current government to make some public officers look bad in public at the least suspicion of graft.
“There is a consistent, conscious, deliberate attempt [by government] to try people in the media,” Mr Fuseini said on Joy FM/Multi TV news analysis programme, Newsfile, on Saturday.
His comments were are in reaction to recent revelations that some officials at two government agencies – the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and National Communication Authority (NCA) – have been looting state funds.
The GSA scandal broke after Joy News intercepted a report detailing an alleged kickback of $1.2 million said to have been paid by a contractor to former Executive Director of the Authority, Dr George Crentsil.
Dr Crentsil has declined to comment on the matter, although GSA has called on him to confess, describing the scandal as embarrassing.
Also, in an interview with Joy News, Information Minster, Mustapha Hamid, revealed that some officials at the NCA allegedly withdrew $4 million from the accounts of the Authority and have failed to account for it.
The Minister named William Tevie, former NCA Director; Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, former Board Chairman; one Alhaji Osman, former Deputy National Security Coordinator among others as officials involved in the scandal.
Although Mr Tevie and other named officials have denied involvement in the alleged looting, the revelations have been touted as a demonstration of the firm resolve by the Nana Akufo-Addo-led administration to root out corruption.
However, Inusah Fuseini thinks otherwise.
He suggests that the current administration is deliberately pushing these inconclusive matters into the public domain through the media.
According to him, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is only playing to the gallery by giving credibility to rumours of corruption even when official investigations are ongoing.
Singling out the NCA scandal, he said it was wrong for the Information Minister to go public especially when the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), is reported to have launched a probe into the matter, has consistently said it was still investigating.
“We are playing propaganda with peoples’ lives and reputations and we are violating in strong terms the fundamental principles of presumption of innocence … and we are de-basing the human dignity of those involved,” he fumed.
The information minister has consistently mentioned briefings with the BNI as sources of the revelations he made on the NCA scandal, but Mr Fuseini is not convinced.
Mr Fuseini thinks until the BNI officially makes a public statement on its findings on the matter, all reports, even from the Minister, cannot be credible.
Editor-in-Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper, Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako Jnr, who was also on the show said although the Information Minister’s revelations carry weight, in the light of denials by the named officials in the NCA case, the BNI and other agencies investigating the matter must make a public statement.
He believes that will clear the air and settle allegations of political witch-hunting by the current government against public officials believed to have been sympathetic to the previous government.
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