We have learned rather shockingly the desire of opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to go to court over the proposed Special Prosecutor’s Office.
By this announcement of intent, we are left in no doubt that the party was nowhere desirous of fighting corruption anyway: former President John Mahama’s occasional reference to the subject and measures he claimed to have taken to stem it have paled out in the face of his party’s opposition to the most effective response yet to fight the graft.
The threatened action by the NDC to shoot down the actualization of the Office of Special Prosecutor is a pointer to the fact that the party has a lot to hide from the public.
Corruption blossomed under the NDC administration, one of the factors Ghanaians considered and voted them out of power.
For the party to think about instituting legal action to thwart the setting up the prosecutor’s office suggests their hypocrisy. We have stated this, time without number that we are dealing with a group of Ghanaians at the helm whose obsession with their parochial interests and corruption is classic and unrivalled.
They have put out on the public domain their apprehension about the Office of the Special Prosecutor rather subtly by this threat: Ghanaians would want to know the circumstances leading to the massive hemorrhaging of the state kitty and details of government officials, who facilitated the aberration for their benefits.
If the NDC feared losing power it was more to do with the imminent letting out of the details of the thievery, which affected the standing of the economy and the eventual possible jailing of some of the defaulters when the courts so decide, of course in conformity with the law and totally devoid of arbitrariness.
Former Transport Minister Dzifa Attivor’s loud cry that an NPP win is automatic jail for her still resonates in our minds.
Many imagined what pushed her to say what she did and the quantum of money involved in whatever deal she engaged in which is haunting her.
We have resolved as Ghanaians to resist any attempt at creating a congenial environment for corruption to continue to blossom in the country.
Corruption is the reason Ghana is in a sorry state today: it has gained an unenviable foothold in the Ghanaian public sector and so the last thing any Ghanaian with a nationalistic spirit would want to do is resist any response designed to give corruption a fatal knock.
They would therefore fail as they did when they sought to cling on to power using the ill-gotten monies to buy votes in their useless quest to kill this most outstanding response yet to the challenge of corruption through the courts.
Let them stand up and count those who want the anti-corruption war to succeed through the establishment of this special office. Most Ghanaians will stand to be associated with this initiative, a critical campaign promise by the then flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo.
By the terms of the special prosecutor’s office, people, who steal state funds, would not find a hiding place as they did under the previous dispensation. Now is the time to deny corruption the oxygen it needs to be alive and what better initiative there is than the Office of Special Prosecutor.