Former Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo, has challenged political parties to go beyond mere promises and provide specific details on their plans to combat corruption, emphasizing the need for tangible action and accountability.
Speaking on GHOne TV State of Affairs with Lantam Papanko, Mr. Domelevo stated that the NPP and NDC manifesto have spoken on the issue of corruption but they are just promising and have no action. “If you look at all the manifestos, they all touch on corruption, but it is not just an issue of rhetoric or promises.” He stressed the need for concrete details to back up these promises.
Mr. Domelevo highlighted some aspects of the NPP manifesto and called for more specifics, such as who the lifestyle audit will apply to saying, “It mentioned that they will consolidate all the laws on corruption, they will introduce lifestyle audit. Fantastic, but we need to see the law, what exactly they are going to say in the law, so they could have helped us by putting some more details to say that we are going to do lifestyle audit only on past government officials or on only ministers or on only, what do you call it, legislature.”
In contrast, Mr. Domelevo noted that the NDC manifesto is “on the NDC side, they are a bit more specific, mentioning some type of recoveries and some investigations which will be done, which is also good.” However, he emphasized that promises alone are not enough. “But you see, all these are promises. Of course, Alan also made some promises the same way, but these are all promises. We want to wait, we want to see how it comes.”
Mr. Domelevo emphasized the need for accountability, saying, “They tell us, look guys, we have made this promise, this is how you should measure us. We are going to deliver it by this date. So by this date, if you don’t see this, we have failed, something of that nature.”
Mr. Domelevo stressed that promises that the NPP and NDC made in their manifesto must be backed by action “So the promises can be good and very exciting, but then what action follows is what we need. So yes, they may promise, but then it is not enough. What we expect them is to tell us what exactly they are going to do, and how do we assess their failure or their success, and by what date are they doing what.”
Mr. Domelevo called for specific measures to prevent corruption, saying, “And they must be specific. For instance, will we continue selling public properties, government land, government vehicles, government, whatever, to public officers? So they have to say, no, we are coming out with a law to stop this. We are going to ban this. We are not going to have a situation where a minister can engage his whole family into his business, or the president will appoint a brother or sister, etc.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Nukpeta Yaa Dorcas
