Rawlings and Kufuor recorded the poorest CPIs — Asiedu Nketiah

The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah says Ghana’s most abysmal performance in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) report by Transparency International were recorded under the first and second presidents of the Fourth Republic.

Since its inception in 1995, the CPI, Transparency International’s flagship publication, is the leading global indicator of public sector corruption. The index offers an annual snapshot of the relative degree of corruption perception by ranking countries from all over the globe.

Many African countries dominated the bottom of the CPI with Somalia, South Sudan, The Sudan, Libya, Guinea Bissau, Eritrea and Angola scoring 10, 11, 14, 14, 16, 18 and 18 with rankings of 176, 175, 170, 170, 168, 164 and 164 respectively.

Addressing a press conference Thursday in Accra at the party’s head office on the impacts of the 2017 CPI on Ghana’s image in the comity of nations, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah said the best CPI results the country has ever recorded, was recorded under the NDC government under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama.

He said the Mahama-led NDC government was able to achieve good CPI results for the country because of the measures his government instituted to deal with corruption, including prosecuting officials in his government.

He said it was only during Mahama’s administration that the country scored 48 points, adding that in 1999, the country scored 33, being the poorest ever, while it had a repeat under the erstwhile Kufuor administration in 2006.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah who was reacting to the 2017 CPI reports in which Ghana dropped 11 positions, said the factors that contributed to the downward movement of the country in the ranking cannot be attributed to the Mahama-led government.

According to him, the incumbent NPP government has not demonstrated any sign of fighting corruption in the country since it took over power from the NDC at the beginning of 2017.

He said the country continues to record high incidents of corruption under the Akufo-Addo-led administration.

“The 2017 report shows the most abysmal performance by the country in recent times”, Mr Asiedu Nketiah said, urging the current administration to work acidulously to reverse the trend and restore the country’s dignity.

He blamed the Akufo-Addo-led government of failing to institute the necessary measures to at least maintain the country’s previous year’s record, if not improving the country’s rank for the better.