Free SHS a game-changer – PC Appiah Ofori

The implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy is one of the best decisions of the Akufo-Addo administration, a former New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa Constituency, PC Appiah Ofori, has said.

He said the programme is a ‘game changer’ in transforming the lives of the people.

He described the performance of the president as “so far so good” while speaking in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on Monday, September 28.

The anti-corruption campaigner also noted that the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor was a good move by Akufo-Addo. “The intention is good but the implementation is what many people should have been prosecuted from the NDC time to the present government.”

PC Appiah Ofori shot to fame in the political arena in Ghana after he constantly leveled corruption allegation against the John Agyekum Kufuor administration after the NPP lost the 2008 elections.

In 2009, he revealed in his testimony before an inter-ministerial committee tasked to review the Ghana Telecom sale, that all the NPP MPs who voted for the sale were each paid $5,000.

He indicated that the current president has abandoned him after helping him to win the elections.

He said: “I championed Akufo-Addo and put him up from 2007 up to the time he became  president 2016. I am not happy about my abandonment. I am not happy about the way Akufo-Addo doesn’t know me.

“Either he has blocked my line or changed his line. If I call him it doesn’t go [through]. I personally petitioned Akufo-Addo that I wanted to be sent to the board if the [Office of] Special Prosecutor so that I will become the investigator but no response from him.

“I wrote the letter as soon as the Special Prosecutor was appointed. I just wanted to go there to investigate all these Auditor General’s reports. Some of the Auditor General’s reports are not comprehensive enough.”

He further revealed that he regrets not serving in Mr John Mahama’s administration after an offer was made to him to that effect.

“John Mahama himself called me and told me he wanted me to go and play a role in his administration and I told him, that if he himself engages in corruption, I would not hesitate to expose him.

“He told me that was why he wanted me to come and be a check on him and his ministers but I didn’t take the position because if I should join NDC administration, it will mean that I had abandoned NPP and I had abandoned Akufo-Addo. So I told him I won’t take  the position but any corrupt practices that will take place in his administration which will come to my notice, I will draw his attention to it.”

Asked whether he regrets not taking up that position, he said: “As a nation, as a country for the better of Ghana, I think if I had placed Ghana’s interest above party  and got into that position, I think I would have been able to get all those engaged in corruption prosecuted. So for that, I have regretted.”