Demonstrate commitment to fight against corruption - CJA urges Mills Administration

The Committee for Joint Action (CJA), a pressure group has called on the Mills Administration to demonstrate its commitment to the fight against corruption by expeditiously implementing the recommendations contained in various Auditor General’s reports.
It also urged the government to move quickly to prosecute all those found culpable of stealing monies belonging to the state and take steps to avoid the recurrence of such sordid acts in the present administration.
Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr, a leading member of the committee who stated this at a press conference in Accra yesterday enumerated several of such alleged corrupt and misappropriation of state funds as reported in the Auditor’s General Report.
He quoted from the 2005 and 2006 Auditors General Report on Public Accounts and mentioned other government transactions such as the commitment of $ 100 million for the purchase of the two presidential jets and the sale of 70 per cent of the shares in Ghana Telecom.
“In eight ministries alone under the NPP government, ¢ 44,814,014,679 were lost to the public in 2005 as a results of a combination of actors including corruption, maladministration, inefficiency and sheer negligence” he said.
“It is our hope and expectation that the Mills' Administration will honour the pledges it made to the people of Ghana to fight corruption and maladministration. We call on the government to review all the cases raised by the CJA and ensure that every pesewa lost to the Ghanaian tax payer is recovered".
Mr Pratt again called on the new government to reduce fuel prices and taxes that “President Mills promised during his campaign".
He stated that the CJA would measure President Mills-led NDC government by the same yardstick it used to measure the NPP when it was in power adding that “we shall continue to insist on the alleviation of the hardship confronting Ghanaians and hold the feet of government and its officials to the fire of accountability".
He also reminded President Mills of the unsolved murder of the Ya-Naa and 40 of his kinsmen as well as the alleged torture and murder of Alhaji Issah Mobila, the Northern Regional CPP chairmen by the military.
Touching on some of the alleged corrupt practices stated in the report, he alleged that under the Ministry of Transportation, the Chief Accountants of Department of Urban Roads at Sekondi embezzled ¢1.2 billion, the Department of Urban Roads also paid for landed properties totalling ¢40.77 billion without receipts while fuel purchases amounting to ¢321.8 million were not recorded in the vehicle log book.
Mr Pratt also gave another example in the report which said that the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Relations single-sourced and awarded a mosquito spraying contract of ¢2 billion to Messrs Sunrise International (Gh) Ltd without approval of the Public Procurement Board.
He said the Ghana Police Service Headquarters Treasury also made purchases of ¢1, 499,296,600 without obtaining a minimum of three quotations contrary to Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act.