Ekow Spio-Gabrah, the former Minister for Communications has revealed that the late former president, Professor John Evans Atta-Mills refused to prosecute corrupt appointees under the John Agyekum Kufuor administrations.
The former NDC flagbearer candidate said that plans were put in place to prosecute any corrupt official who served in president Kufuor’s government in over 100 cases but the late president pulled the plugs on it.
He said former president Rawlings supported the idea as long as it was done by the book but Atta-Mills kicked against it because he wanted to be the father figure for all Ghanaians.
“You are in the media. There are over 100 corruption scandals. Unfortunately, there were a similar 100 cases when Kufuor left office, and as our colleague, Hon. Kwamena Ahwoi, wrote in a book, the NDC at the time, under Professor Mills, was ready to prosecute these over 100 cases.
“President Rawlings then accepted it and said yes, this is a very good idea. Go ahead and prosecute, but according to the book, some of them went to Prof. Mills just to inform him that is what we are going to do, and President Mills said no, I am father for all. He wanted to encourage a new thinking in Ghana, where we can forgive and avoid recriminations,” he said in an interview with TV3.
He added Professor Mills would have regretted his decisions if he was still alive because the NPP didn’t learn from their mistakes and have gone ahead to do worse.
“What Prof. Mills was hoping to do was that if all the sins of the NPP had been forgiven, then hopefully the sins would not occur again. But this is even worse because Prof. Mills forgave them. NPP wants to think that they did not do everything wrong.”
“That is what they say when they go on platforms that the NDC has no evidence against them from Kufuor’s time because they were all innocent. They have never committed any offence so that is why they have been encouraged to dip their hands and fingers into every pie that moves, putting us all in complete bankruptcy,” he explained.