Politics of Thursday, 5 November 2020
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2020-11-05Today in history: Punish your own like I did - Mahama to Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo and John Mahama
Former President John Dramani Mahama three years ago told President Akufo-Addo to equally punish his appointees who fall short of the law.
According to Mahama, he did same during his tenure of office so President Akufo-Addo should follow his lead.
His comments followed government’s payment of huge sums of money to a local IT firm, Vokacom for the development
Read full articleof a digital addressing system.
Read the story orginally published in 2017 by Class FM below.
Former President John Mahama has dared President Nana Akufo-Addo to exact punishment on his appointees just as he (Mahama) did when he was president.
Speaking to a crowd of National Democratic Congress members in Central Region after a Unity Walk, Mr Mahama berated the wisdom in forking out “GHS15 million” to local IT firm Vokacom for the development of a digital addressing application system which, according to him, already exists on mobile phones free of charge.
In Mr Mahama’s estimation, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who led the whole project, has brought embarrassment to President Akufo-Addo.
“…How can you launch a whopping GPS system that is freely available on our mobile phones and say it is the best national addressing system?” Mr Mahama wondered, adding: “It’s such a pity.”
“Why would you embarrass the president so much?” he said.
Prior to the launch of the application, Dr Bawumia has said: “It is more advanced than [those in] the United States or the United Kingdom or Germany because they are stuck to old technology and we are leap-frogging.”
“We are going to a new technology; we are going to GPS-based technology”, Dr. Bawumia said on Wednesday, 4 October when he delivered a lecture titled: Developing Stronger Economies for the African Continent: the Missing Link’ at the 3rdAdvancement Lecture Series 2017 organised by the Institutional Advancement Office of the University of Cape Coast.
The digital address system, he noted, has unique postcodes for every location in Ghana, adding that: “We have been able to put together 16.1 billion addresses: every five by five metres square apart in Ghana has a unique address.”
Mr Mahama, however, said President Akufo-Addo must hold somebody accountable for giving state funds away for something that already existed free of charge.
“… And when you talk about accountability, this is where the president should show that he is serious about corruption. Somebody must account for GHS15miliion given away free of charge.”
Contrasting the digital addressing application issue with the bus branding corruption saga that happened during his tenure of office, Mr Mahama said: “When I was in office, there was a bus branding incident, GHC3.6 million, a minister of state resigned because of GHC3.6 million. When you come into office and you want to cover up, you can cover up. When things happen you just refuse to investigate them.
“The toughness of the fight against corruption is that you are able to take action against your own people and that is what we did when we were in office. Here the NPP seems unable to take, the president seems unable to take self-action in anything,” Mr Mahama added.
