Let’s confront corruption from high echelon - Lartey
The flag bearer of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), Dr Henry Herbert Lartey, has stressed the need for corruption to be tackled from the high echelon of government.
According to him, when corruption was punished at the top, it would serve as a deterrent to the ordinary people.
At a press conference in Accra last Tuesday, he said such high-profile cases of ‘perceived corruption’ such as Former President Jerry John Rawlings receiving millions of dollars from a former Nigerian Head of State, General Sani Abacha ought to be investigated by the Commission of Human Rights, and Administrative Justice(CHRAJ).
Amassing wealth
Dr Lartey said until the former President was investigated and cleared the meaning of the slogans ‘’probity, transparency and accountability,” would be of no effect.
He has, therefore, declared his intentions to petition CHRAJ to investigate former President Rawlings’s alleged $5 million gift he is rumoured to have received.
No personal vendetta
‘’ No personal vendetta or whatsoever, I actually respected him to a point; it is a sad thing that a man of probity and accountability must come to tell us that he took $2 million cash [from Abacha].
‘’Did he take it on behalf of Ghanaians? Who signed for the money? What was the money used for…? Did he really receive $2 million” he asked.
Mr Rawlings, while speaking to the Guardian newspaper in Nigeria in July this year, admitted receiving the money from that country’s late military ruler but said it was $2 million and not $5 million as alleged. The incident happened in 1998.