News:
September 13, 2019
Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye has called on the Western Countries to stop ridiculing Ghana’s agenda of “Ghana and Africa beyond Aid” policy introduced by President Nana Akufo-Addo.
According to the Speaker the West should rather assist government in its pursuit of strengthening anti-corruption institutions like the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and empowering media freedom.
His remarks comes in the wake of the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, Ron Strikker making comments to the effect that instead of ‘Ghana Beyond Aids’ why not the Government of Ghana focus on ‘Ghana beyond Corruption?”
Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye at the opening of a four day conference of Parliamentary Budget Officers (PBOs) in Accra on Monday 10th of September 2019 noted that the thinking of the current administration, Ghana should not be only financial handover receivers.
“It pains me that those who are not prepared to assist us build our country in the event of the World Economic order, the Western World turn around and mock us saying we should think of corruption rather than Ghana beyond aid. This type of ridiculing is tragic and must be condemned because we need to tackle the fundamentals”.
He further added that the two ‘Ghana beyond aid’ and ‘Ghana beyond corruption’ must go together, and to make money, there must be accountability so corruption can be done away with particularly in Ghana.
“We have some of these things in recent years, we worked in the taking away of the criminal liable law which criminalized journalists, we have public procurement Act and have Office of the Special Prosecutor”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com