300 corruption trials: Mahama has been misconstrued - Batidam

A Presidential Advisor on Corruption, Daniel Batidam says President Mahama’s comments on the number of people being prosecuted by his government for various acts of corruption in the country have been misconstrued.

He said the President’s statement was in reference to the number of individuals standing trial for corruption across board and not only under his (Mahama), administration, as the impression is being created by a section of the media.

President Mahama has revealed that over 300 individuals are being prosecuted for their involvement in various acts of corruption.

The President made the statement at a high-level conference organised by the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) in Accra on Tuesday, December 9, 2014.

Since the revelation by the President, civil society groups such as the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) have challenged government to put out the names of these persons.

But speaking on MORNING STARR with Kafui Dey, Monday, Batidam said the media misunderstood the President.

“…Over the last few days, I have had the opportunity to sit on other networks and correct this false impression that has been put out by the media.”

According to him, the President was only making reference to official documents made available to him by the Ghana Prisons Service.

“I have here with me, evidence of that statistics from the Prisons Service and it says between July 2013 and now, over 300 people are being prosecuted for various crimes in relation to corruption”.

“When somebody takes these statement where the president mentions over 300 individuals in relation to a specific issue and out of mischief decided to insert it somewhere, then people will be asking for names to be disclosed,” the anti-corruption campaigner stated.

He said the data was made available as a result of a review exercise which was being done on the country’s crime rate by the United Nations.