Rawlings’ NDC overhaul comments unsurprising – Akamba

It is not surprising that former President Jerry John Rawlings is calling for a complete overhaul in the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) following the party’s defeat in last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, Joshua Amidu Akamba, Deputy National Organiser of the NDC, has said.

According to him, Mr Rawlings has been trumpeting this agenda for several years now and so his latest calling is nothing new.

Mr Rawlings, while addressing party supporters at Wa to commemorate the 38th anniversary of the 4 June 1979 uprising, said the NDC lost the elections because it betrayed the principles of the revolution – probity, integrity, and accountability.

“Not too long ago, I thought we heard the jockeys claiming the horses were responsible for this disgraceful failure, while one of the horses was bold enough to lay the failure at the doorstep of the jockeys,” he said.

“For me, we lost our masses because we betrayed the values of June 4.

“If this horse-jockey business cannot be resolved comprehensively allowing integrity, most of all, to prevail, then let both of them step aside and allow for fresh leaders with solid integrity to provide the needed leadership.”

He said the party wasted many opportunities to revert to its founding principles. “We squandered many opportunities to clean up and to restore the June 4 principles in the party. …Nobody is saying don’t make money, make it good and clean. … [It’s] sickening the kind of greed and selfishness [prevailing], look at where it landed us,” the ex-Ghanaian leader lamented.

But speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM on Monday June 5, Mr Akamba said: “I agree that the NDC was formed on the back of probity, accountability, and transparency. That does not mean you shouldn’t make money as a member of the party in government but you should do so with a clean heart and hands. There should not be corruption involved in the acquisition of money or wealth.

“On the issue of corruption, I don’t have any evidence of an official of the past administration who was corrupt, we all know persons are innocent until they have been pronounced guilty [by] a court and so I don’t have any evidence to label somebody as corrupt. What I do know is that most of the corruption cases that came out, including the GYEEDA issue, were investigated under the Mahama administration.”

He added: “On the overhauling of the NDC leadership, I am not surprised at all because Mr Rawlings has been calling for this for a very long time, and so it is not new. What I will agree with him is the greed on the part of some of our members and this is something I have also been saying. We had some party people who openly worked against some parliamentary candidates because they themselves didn’t win to contest or their preferred choices did not win. That was unacceptable.”