Akufo-Addo govt needs urgent vaccination against corruption – Ablakwa

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for the North Tongu constituency, has averred that the Akufo-Addo government was in urgent need of corruption vaccine.

He made the comments while contributing to parliamentary debate on the president’s State Of The Nation Address, SoNA; as delivered before the house on March 9.

“Mr Speaker, I wish to say that in this era of COVID-19 vaccination, the Akufo-Addo government needs an urgent and immediate vaccination against corruption.

“The corruption that has engulfed the Akufo-Addo government, apart from COVID-19 vaccine, the other vaccine that we need so urgently and now, now, now Mr Speaker is the corruption vaccine,” he added.

One of the major issues that Akufo-Addo has been criticized on with respect to the SoNA has been his seeming silence on the issue of corruption.

The address did not contain the word “corruption” with the closest the president came to the concept being: "Mr. Speaker, my Government found the resources to cushion the impact of the pandemic because we are good managers of the economy, and we are good protectors of the public purse."

The forced resignation of former Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo, is the latest development that is gaining traction from anti-corruption crusaders and civil society organizations, CSOs. The most recent being a damning verdict by Prof Emmanuel Gyimah Boadi, co-founder of the Afrobarometer think-tank.

“As for the president’s credibility in terms of anti-corruption, I am afraid to say it is in tatters. It has been in tatters for a while but this puts a nail in the coffin.

“I see Domelevo as a victim of well-orchestrated actions by individuals who are [government] officials and by state institutions,” Prof Gyimah-Boadi told Citi TV in a report monitored by GhanaWeb on Wednesday.