Deputy Director of International Relations for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fred Agbenyo, has stated that the government is not committed and willing to fight corruption in the country.
The Special Prosecutor, Office of the Special Prosecutor while addressing a gathering at an event to mark the International Anti-Corruption Day Thursday, December 9, 2021, said the 2022 budget allocation to his office was inadequate to fight against corruption.
He also revealed that the fight against corruption had retrogressed for three years as a result of the failure to operationalise the Office of the Special Prosecutor during that period.
Commenting on this, NDC's Deputy Director of International Relations said the failure of government to resource the Office of the Special Prosecutor under the first Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, in addition to the compliant made by the current Special Prosecutor clearly erodes the Nana Akufo-Addo-led government's commitment to combat corruption in the country.
"The government is not really committed to fighting corruption. They have created the office, but the logistics to work with, they will make sure not to give them to you. Martin Amidu said these things and the new person who now is seen as an NPP person is also complaining about the same thing," Mr Agbenyo said.
He noted that the posture of President Akufo-Addo on some corruption scandals under his administration shows his unwillingness to fight against corruption.
"Everybody who has observed our President since he took over the office and his attitude towards issues of corruption can tell clearly that the committed is not there... some of the scandals that have happened under his government and the way and manner he went about it.
"His appointees, anytime they are mentioned in any form of scandal, he tries to whitewash it, in some cases, he comes out to defend them openly, they have not done anything wrong, they have been investigated, everything is alright," Mr Agbenyo added.
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Speaking on TV3's New Day, Fred Agbenyo said the Office of the Special Prosecutor was set up to create an impression to fight corruption but not to fight corruption in the actual sense.
"The government is not really committed to fighting corruption but because they mentioned it in the 2016 elections, they must do something that resembles that so they created the office... this office, it was just to create an impression that we want to do something," he stressed.
He added that the Office of the Special Prosecutor was a needless institution due to the existence of similar investigative bodies established to also perform the same functions.