Flashback: Akufo-Addo inherited 'corruption at its worst' – Rawlings

Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Jerry John Rawlings in 2017 announced that the Akufo-Addo led New Patriotic Party (NPP) inherited a corruption-stricken country from his party.

Addressing a meeting with a delegation of political leaders from Sierra Leone said “By the time this administration came into office, the country was literally drowning in the practice of corruption with impunity. This administration has, therefore, inherited national corruption at its worst”.

Rawlings, therefore, entreated all to be supportive in the fight against the national canker.

Read the story orginally published in 2017 by Class FM below.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo inherited a “national corruption at its worst” from the National Democratic Congress administration, former President Jerry John Rawlings has said.

To such end, he has called for a joint effort in the fight against corruption because he believes government would have a hard time doing it alone.

Speaking during a meeting with a delegation of political leaders from Sierra Leone led by former Vice-President Chief Sam-Sumana on Sunday, Mr Rawlings said each administration’s refusal to contain and punish corruption, invariably provided the climate and opportunity for the problem to eat deeper into the fabric of the nation to the extent that one could only succeed by doing things the wrong way.

He noted that the corruption crisis he faced when he first came to power in 1979 was not as bad as what is being confronted today.

“By the time this administration came into office, the country was literally drowning in the practice of corruption with impunity. This administration has, therefore, inherited national corruption at its worst,” Mr. Rawlings stated.

He further indicated that: “The current government owes its own survival to the anti-corruption crusade”, explaining that some administrations who found the integrity level of the AFRC/PNDC too high and intimidating made it a point to corrupt some of the country’s national institutions in order to survive.

Mr Rawlings said the revolution brought the best out of Ghanaians and recalled there were several efforts supported by Western powers to derail the process, including the deportation of one million Ghanaians from Nigeria under Shehu Shagari’s administration.