The only Ghanaian and West Africa's representative on the AU Advisory Board on Corruption, Daniel Batidam, has resigned, citing deep-seated corruption, lack of accountability among others at the secretariat of the board and at the AU Commission.
In Daniel Batidam's resignation letter sent to the Chairman of the AU Commision, Paul Kagame read, “After witnessing several instances and degrees of bad governance, including the abuse of trusted power, corruption, lack of probity, accountability, transparency, and integrity at the secretariat of the African Union Board of Corruption and some departments of the AU Commission itself for over a period of three years now, while all efforts at seeking redress have yielded no results, I have decided on grounds of principle that enough is enough,â€.
According to former President John Mahama's Advisor on Governance, Daniel Batidam, his resignation letter, dated June 8, 2018, was received by the AU chairman on June 12 and an acceptance letter from the Chair of the AU was sent to him within 48 hours, of which He thinks the acceptance letter came too fast and failed to take cognisance of the serious issues he raised in his letter.
Speaking in an interview on Joy News concerning his resignation on Thursday, Daniel Batidam disclosed that his resignation was meant to prompt the AU Commission to take urgent action to deal with the malfeasance at the African Union.
“I think that the reason my resignation was accepted was simply that the evidence to support the issues I raised in my resignation letter [are] with the Commission and there could not be an argument.
“Ordinarily, what one would have expected was you receive an invitation letter…[asking] ‘can you tell us exactly what you mean’ but apparently, because they already have the documents and the evidence of what I am talking about, the only thing to do was to say ‘okay we accept it’â€, he said.
The AU Advisory Board on Corruption is an autonomous organ established within the AU and tasked with the core function of preventing and combating corruption among members of the continental body.
The Board is mandated to deal with corruption and related themes in Africa.
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