Corruption under Akufo-Addo is not just fighting back, it is easily winning the war - Prof Kweku Azar

Ghanaian U.S. based Technocrat and social commentator Professor Kweku Azar is accusing the Akufo-Addo-led government of losing the fight against corruption.

According to the renowned Professor, corruption is not just fighting back, it is easily winning the war, assuming there is even a war on corruption. He believes there is no fight against corruption under Akufo-Addo at all.

Prof. Azar is worried about the fact that under Akufo-Addo,"our anti-corruption officers are only free to perform as long as they stay within their lanes. "

Below is the full statement released on his Facebook wall yesterday:

To lose both the Auditor-General and the Special Prosecutor within a space of 5 months is troubling, unprecedented and a devastating blow to the anti-corruption effort. It seems our anti-corruption officers are free to perform as long as they stay within their lanes.

Corruption is not just fighting back, it is easily winning the war, assuming there is even a war on corruption.

In the drama, we often lose sight of the havoc that corruption wreaks on the body politic: a trust-deficit; decline in standard of living; ineffective public policies; high unemployment; diversion of resources away from schools, roads, and hospitals; square pegs in round holes; etc.

We cannot conquer corruption if our anti-corruption officers are not free to do their work! Nor can we conquer corruption with words, rhetorics and propaganda!

Not long ago the Auditor-General was forced to go on ‘accumulated leave’ by two separate dramatic directives from the Presidency just before he was supposed to file a report in the Supreme Court in the Kroll and Associates case involving the Senior Minister.

The Auditor-General was vehemently opposed to some payments made by the government to that company ‘for no work done’. He is also being fought in the High Court by elements of the government on the same case.

The former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, has also had to resign from office citing interference in his functions as Special Prosecutor after releasing an implicating report of the assessment of the risk of corruption and anti-corruption on the Agyapa Royalties Limited Transactions.

The report indicts close family members of the President who are also his appointees including the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta and Gabby Otchere Darko, the man believed strongly to be the de facto Prime Minister of Ghana.

The Agyapa report also challenges the propriety of the conduct of the President in assenting to the Minerals Income Investment (Amendment) Act, (Act 1024) which purported to retroactively impact Parliamentary approval of the scandalous Agyapa Royalties transactions.