Two political leaders have called on the Economic and Organise Crime Office (EOCO) to stop harassing Ghanaians who are going about their lawful duties and businesses.
According to the two, EOCO is using its highly respected office to either intimidate or harass some individuals and companies by freezing their accounts and assets.
The two leaders, Messrs Kofi Akpaloo and Akwasi Addai Odike of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) and United Progressive Party (UPP) respectively, were speaking to the Daily Graphic in an interview last Saturday.
They called on the government to intervene to save particularly road and building contractors who were being harassed by EOCO.
The two political leaders contended that the practice of EOCO had led some of the local contractors to fold up, laying off many workers.
They cited a road construction company, Kofi Job, which also owned a quarry at Asonomaso in the Kwabere District in Ashanti which had laid off several workers because of the harassment being meted out to the company by EOCO.
They noted that the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo believed in the private sector as the engine of growth and he was in the process of making private sector lead the creation of jobs for the people, especially the youth.
They, therefore, cautioned that such harassment would defeat the government’s avowed aim of collaborating with the private sector to build sound economic advancement.
They challenged EOCO for not having the locus to deal with the companies and stressed that rather it should have been the job of the Ghana Highways Authority and the Urban Roads to deal with such cases.
They questioned why EOCO had failed to extend its harassment and intimidation to foreign companies which were operating in the country.
source: Graphic Online