See corruption fight as fight against crime – Akufo-Addo

President Akufo-Addo has urged Ghanaians to see the fight against corruption as a fight against crime, and not a political witch-hunt.

“I won’t accept that the process of bringing people before the court for corruption are done for political purposes. They are done because we have evidence the people breach the law and thereby caused damage to the public interest,” he stated.

Akufo-Addo said this Tuesday, July 18, 2017, in reply to a question during his maiden encounter with journalists after assuming the presidency.

According to him, for the government to be able to effectively prosecute individuals who were alleged to have wrecked-havoc on the state’s coffers, there is the need to “build strong, well-documented, well-researched” evidence into the allegations.

He said the government is being cautious with how it handles allegations of malfeasance levelled against officials of the previous administration to avoid prosecutions being initiated just to satisfy the appetite of people.

Prosecutions against former government officials, he stated, will only be initiated because there is concrete documentation and evidence of wrongdoing “which a court of law can reliably use to convict people.”

The allegations, he declared, are being investigated and when time come for them to find their hearing in formal prosecution “my expectation is that they will not be flimsy cases. They will not be about the attempt to witch-hunt members of the last government.”