CORRUPTION; Mahama Accuses Akufo-Addo Of Turning Presidency Into Clearing House For Graft

President Nana Akufo-Addo has plundered Ghana’s economy into oblivion, former President John Mahama has said.

According to the presidential candidate of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), the presidential candidate of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), “has turned the Presidency into a clearing-house for wholesale corruption on a scale never before seen in the history of the 4th Republic”.

“It’s time for him to go”, Mr. Mahama said on his Facebook page, adding: “On Election Day, vote #2 and tell Nana and his gang to pack their bags”.

A few days ago, Mr. Mahama said the President has sunk Ghana so low following the leakage of a videotape that captured Nana Akufo-Addo accepting money in a brown envelope at his office in Nima.

“A President shameless enough to accept money in a brown paper bag like a mafia chieftain – Nana has made it clearer than ever that he was only interested in the Presidency so that he could enrich himself, and he was willing to tell any lie to get there”, Mr Mahama wrote.

“You have seen with your own eyes how low Nana has brought Ghana. Rising food prices, youth unemployment, no real development, increasing debt, no future for your children. Do you really want 4 more years of that?” he asked, adding: “#RescueMission #KickNanaOut #JohnMahama2020”.

Meanwhile, the National Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, has said President Akufo-Addo must speak on the accusation that he took a bribe of GH¢40,000.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Friday, Sammy Gyamfi said communicators of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) should not be speaking on behalf of the president on this matter.

“President Nana Add Dankwa Akufo-Addo must speak. Let him speak just like John Mahama spoke on the Airbus scandal,” he said.

His comments come as a result of a video making rounds on social media, showing President Akufo-Addo receiving a $40,000 “donation” – said to be bribe – from a man and a woman.
The NDC has called out the president to come clean and explain the circumstances under which the money was received in his presidential office.

The party’s Member of Parliament for Ketu South Constituency, Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey, thinks the president cannot absolve himself from bribery even if it demands consulting traditional deities.

But Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah reacted to the allegations and said it is only characteristic of the NDC to rely on “waging a campaign of lies, fake news and fabrications [and] the opposition candidate and his party have now sponsored the doctoring of this video and superimposed it with new voices to create the false impression that it is a post-2016 event showing the President receiving bribe”.

“Whilst we are not surprised by the new low by the opposition candidate and his party, we remind Ghanaians that they should expect more of such falsehoods and fabrications in the days leading up to the election.”