Former Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Vituz Azeem, has dismissed President Nana Akufo-Addo’s comment that it is not his duty to clear or convict officials accused of corruption in Ghana.
To Vituz Azeem, the president is responsible for the referral of cases to the appropriate institutions for investigations to begin, hence takes the decision after the report is submitted.
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The comment of Mr Azeem follows the President’s speech at the Ghana Bar Conference in Takoradi on Monday where he said: “It is not my job to clear or convict any person accused of wrongdoing or of engaging in acts of corruption. My job is to act on allegations of corruption by referring the issue or issues to the proper investigative agencies for the relevant inquiry and necessary action.”
However, speaking in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM, monitored by Adomonine.com, Mr Azeem said the President’s role requires him to act on cases of corruption by taking the responsibility to clear or convict persons implicated in corruption scandals.
“It is his job [to clear or convict], he refers the matters for investigations so he is expected to act on them. If he did not intend to act on them he should not have caused an investigation to take place. It is not just a matter of saying go and investigate,” he noted.
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Mr Azeem urged President Akufo-Addo to publish investigated corruption reports and not to just announce clearance of the people involved in the cases.
“If you refer a case to someone to investigate, you are the only one who is allowed to release the report so even those so-called independent bodies cannot release the reports.
“They only submit it to the President who asked them to do the investigation and so we expect to see more details in the report rather than just coming to say they have been cleared. We must at least see 10 cases published,” he added.
Source: Adomonline.com | Gertrude Otchere