Political analyst Dr. Kwame Asah-Asante has criticized the Akufo-Addo-led government’s fight against corruption, describing it as little more than a “talk-show.”
His comments come after President Akufo-Addo asserted that posterity will judge the legacies of his administration, with many Ghanaians already labeling it as one of the most corrupt in the country’s history.
Speaking on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey, Dr. Asah-Asante expressed disappointment in the government’s handling of corruption, highlighting the failure to make significant progress despite the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor and the passage of the Right to Information Act.
While acknowledging these steps, Dr. Asah-Asante argued that they have not translated into tangible results.
He pointed to findings from Transparency International and the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), which report that Ghana loses over $3 billion annually to corruption.
Dr. Asah-Asante emphasised that if these losses were addressed, the country would not have needed to seek a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Dr. Asah-Asante also cited financial waste as a key issue, referencing the Auditor General’s report, which exposes significant mismanagement within the system.
While acknowledging the president’s efforts to combat corruption, Dr. Asah-Asante stated that the numbers speak for themselves: the government’s anti-corruption rating, according to Transparency International, has only improved marginally from 40% to 43%.
This, he argued, underscores the lack of real progress in addressing corruption, making the government’s fight against it appear more like a “talk-show” than a serious, sustained effort to root out corruption.
“The economy, the president failed woefully against the backdrop that there were early signals people gave to the president that they all fell on deaf ears; the president did not mind all these and we are where we are as a result of mismanagement of the economy, there’s absolutely no doubt about that. We’ve mismanaged the economy to the extent that we have to be in IMF for 3billion dollars, which when we are able to pluck corruption, which transparent International, local branch, GII tell us that every year we lose more than 3billion dollars to corruption, fix corruption and we don’t go to IMF.”
“Another thing relative to economic mismanagement was financial waste. If you read the auditor general’s report and other financial reports, it’s replete with a tall list of financial waste within the system. the president and his government were not bale to manage it and this is also a blot on his economy. Corruption, the president, I will not take it away from him that he established the office of the special prosecutor, pass into law the Right to Information Act, he passed that.”
“But what have you achieved in this regard. The evidence can be found on the website of Transparent international which says that the record that it stands today in the name of the president and his government, is that they began with 40% at the inception of this government and the highest they got is 43%. So for me that speaks into volume that all his efforts about corruption was just a talk show, was not a workshop where we settle down into making sure that we fight corruption head-on.”
