According to him, the government must take responsibility for the country’s poor performance in the recent corruption perception index report put together by the Ghana Integrity Initiative, the local arm of Transparency International.

[contextly_sidebar id=”bDKGdhV6v9qxuhlFc845NkyleDSniPRT”]Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Asiedu Nketia challenged claims by some government communicators that the report took into account happenings within the erstwhile NDC government, noting that of the nine data sources used for the report, only two were from 2016, under the NDC government.

He said the NPP government however “inexplicably decided to play unwholesome politics with a matter as serious as this, and did the unthinkable by blaming the past NDC government for the country’s catastrophic decline in the survey.”

“The Akufo-Addo government promptly deployed a phalanx of spokespersons to churn out a most illogical and implausible spin, that events which took place three or four years earlier account for the horrible 2017 CPI [Corruption Perception Index] results.”

“According to these government spokespersons, the erstwhile NDC administration is to blame… It is either the president has not apprised himself of the CPI report or he is a conspirator in an effort to deliberately mislead the public,” he said.

“It is a matter of public knowledge that the CPI for 2017 was provided from nine data sources. Only two or 22% out of these are traceable to 2016.  The remaining seven or 88% emanated from 2017. This means that an overwhelming majority of data sources used in this survey were based on happenings in the first year of President Akufo-Addo,” he added.

Asiedu Nketia argued that the party’s analysis of the report over the past 20 years showed that Ghana’s best performance in the CPI was under the NDC with John Mahama as president in 2014.

‘Corruption ranking covered Mahama administration’

The government in reaction to the report explained that Ghana’s poor performance took into account corruption cases recorded under the John Mahama administration, which left power in January 2017.

The government’s Spokesperson on Governance and Legal Affairs, Herbert Krapa, explained that the report was not an indication that the current New Patriotic Party [NPP] government was corrupt.

‘Rot in Akufo-Addo gov’t’

But the minority in Parliament insisted that Ghana’s ranking is a vindication of their position that the current government is presiding over a corrupt administration.

Speaking to Citi News, the Minority Spokesperson on Communications, A.B.A. Fuseini, said the drop in Ghana’s ranking on the Index proves that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is unwilling to fight the canker.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post NPP solely responsible for poor showing in corruption ranking – NDC appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Index put together by Transparency International ranks countries annually by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.

[contextly_sidebar id=”UptCcL1g5z1P1cf0ZXTJmApmbQCt0YOJ”]Ghana’s mark out of a total of 100 was 40, down from 43, which the country attained in the last index.

Executive Director of the local chapter of Transparency International, Ghana Integrity Initiative, Linda Ofori Kwafo told Citi News the country performed poorly.

“We have the CPI for 2017 and Ghana performed not too good. Ghana actually dropped so far as our score is concerned. The most important thing on the CPI is the score and so on the scale of 0 to 100, Ghana scored 40 out of 100 points.”

Ghana drops further in 2016 corruption ranking

In the 2016 Corruption Perception Index ranking, Ghana dropped four percentage points, scoring 43 out of a clean score of 100.

The country was ranked 70 out of 176 countries globally; performing worse than countries such as Rwanda, Namibia and Senegal.

In 2012 however, Ghana scored 45 points out of 100, 46 points in 2013, and 48 in 2014 [0 means highly corrupt while 100 means very clean].

Ghana’s performance dropped abysmally again in 2014, when it ranked 61st out of the 175 countries surveyed across the world.

Corruption allegations against NPP gov’t

The NPP government, which is only a year and a few months in office, has so far found itself in some cases of alleged corruption, with the major ones being the allegation of corruption against two deputy chiefs of staff, by musician and NPP sympathizer Kwame A-Plus, as well as the perceived corruption in the sale of contaminated fuel involving BOST.

There has also been perceived corruption in government’s handling of the Ameri Power Deal, in which the same firm that was being questioned over a supposed bloated contract, sponsored a committee from Ghana to Dubai to hold discussions with them.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, was also accused of cronyism by the minority in one of government’s bond issue, although CHRAJ cleared him of any conflict of interest position after an NDC member petitioned the state agency to investigate the deal.

Another major scandal, which many were unhappy with, was the allegations of corruption leveled against Boakye Agyarko, now Energy Minister during his vetting.

He was accused by some minority MPs of seeking to bribe them to enable him sail through his vetting with ease. The matter was later investigated by parliament, but the accusers were supposedly unable to prove their claims.

The latest was the alleged cash-for-seat saga, where expatriates are alleged to have been made to pay huge sums of money to sit close to the President at the Ghana Expatriate Business Awards.

A by-partisan committee set up in Parliament to investigate the matter, has cleared all the stakeholders of any wrongdoing, but the minority members largely disagree with the outcome.

In the wake of all these reports, Nana Akufo-Addo has reiterated his commitment to fight corruption, and has thus appointed a known NDC member Martin Amidu as the country’s first Special Prosecutor to deal with corruption.

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Ghana drops to 81 in 2017 corruption perception Index appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.