ORAL shows Mahama doesn’t trust state institutions – Assafuah

Old Tafo Member of Parliament Vincent Ekow Assafuah has said that the establishment of Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) shows that President-elect John Mahama does not trust state institutions.

He expresses the view that this committee will not achieve anything because it is not backed by any law.

Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, December 21, he said “This is an unconstitutional body that has no legal basis. It is simply a populist approach. We have institutions, solid institutions like EOCO, OSP, and CHRAJ that can deal with issues of anti-corruption. The committee doesn’t have investigative and prosecutorial powers.”

Also commenting on this matter, the Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Addah said there were better approaches that President-elect John Mahama should have adopted as part of his plan to fight corruption.

She indicated this after describing ORAL as a populist idea.

In her view, this has just been formed to appease the public. Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, December 21, she stated that they have no reservations about members of the team.

However, she said “We are people who must be guided by the past about what has happened…we have seen similar committees being formed before. Akufo-Addo put in place several committees.

“We have the institutions of a state, the better approach for Mahama was to have directed the people to to send their concerns to the OSP, or CHRAJ. We are a people who have decided that we will pursue a democracy and this has built institutions for us. So if leadership wants some people to rather receive the information and send it to the institution then there is an issue, we support the call to fight corruption, and we want to see it in action but our institutions must be allowed to do this process.

“This is a populist idea of receiving complaints from the public.”

President-elect John Mahama earlier stated that the team is not going to investigate anybody.

Mr Mahama clarified that the team is only a focal point to revive information on acts of corruption by officials for onward submission to the state bodies to act on them.

He said “With regards to ORAL, I announced the preparatory committee and people are confused. We are receiving a lot of information on things that are going wrong, corruption scandals and all that., some send me texts on my phones, some call me, others pass through other people. We want a focal point where all the evidence can be directed so that they can assemble the evidence once we come into office.

“ORAL is not going to be investigating people, it is going to gather evidence and pass on the evidence to the institutions that are supposed to do that kind of work. If people have information that they think is useful in the fight against corruption, pass it on to the team.  the team is not expecting any payment, there is no budget associated with it.”

 

 

 

 

 

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