Mahama's fight against corruption is unmatched - Asiedu Nketia

Regardless of the fallouts from the GYEEDA, SUBAH, SADA, the NSS ghost names saga, Masloc embezzlement; the 2014 world cup fiasco and others, the General Secretary of the incumbent National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, says President Mahama's record in the fight against corruption is unsurpassed.

A survey conducted by the Institute of Economic Affairs, IEA, has said the office of the President was perceived by its respondents to be the second most corrupt institution, a claim Government vehemently denied.

Expatiating his assertion that President Mahama's action on corruption was unmatched in the history of the country, Mr. Asiedu Nketia told TV3's Nana Aba Anamoah on New Day that unlike in previous governments where cases of corruption were swept under the carpet to make the governing party appear good, the NDC under President Mahama, was exposing and punishing offenders using the law courts.

"I am very much against corruption and I think that corruption must be fought but the means of fighting corruption in Ghana now can only be through the democratic legal process. There is no other way to do it. I hear people who subscribe to democracy when it suits them but expect us to be using revolutionary methods to deal with corruption cases. It's not possible" he noted.

"I also hear people who even claim to be lawyers and they think that when corruption is detected somewhere, apart from the government action to expose it, investigate it and send it to court for prosecution, government has the power to influence the outcome of those cases and then after that they even want to chose the method by which they want Government to use to retrieve the money".

" I think that President Mahama's fight against corruption is unsurpassed by any democratically elected President in this country".

In responding to suggestions by political opponents that the Mahama presidency was the most corrupt, Mr. Asiedu Nketia said, "Corruption is such that you need to expose it before you deal with it. So if you have a government that is investing in exposing corruption in the first place, then the government is on track in fighting corruption. The position of President Mahama is markedly different from the position of President Kufuor in the fight against corruption. In that, President Mahama says wherever there is any allegation of corruption we will trigger the investigative institutions to investigate, we will use the rule of law to deal with these things. And that's how far the executive can go and he has remained very faithful to that. So because of that, you will see that you cannot do anything corrupt in this country now and hope that you will not be exposed. So that's a very important achievement" he emphasized.

"I want to believe that is the reason why President Mahama has scored higher than the previous President in terms of rating by these anti-corruption agencies. You need to expose them; so transparency is the most important tool to fight corruption and he is doing".

"When you compare it to the position of President Kufuor in those days, President Kufuor said that he wasn't going to investigate cases that appear in newspapers and that if any suspected corruption they should investigate and report to the appropriate agencies. And then he also made a statement that he was not going to deal publicly with his corrupt appointees because it was going to affect the image of his party. The truth is that, worst things had been happening but there was conscious effort by at least one President to cover up so that his Government doesn't get tainted. So now there is more exposure you get the impression that corruption is rampant".