Corrupt state officials must be sanctioned – Agbenyo

Fred Agbenyo, a member of the Communications team of the National Democratic Congress, has called on government to sanction corrupt officials.

He implored government to ensure that any official caught in the web of corruption faces the full rigors of the law. “They need to go through the due process of the law.”

Reacting to the shocking revelation by the State Enterprise Audit Corporation that documents covering the sale of the GNPC Drill Ship to Societe General have been lost, Fred Agbenyo expressed disappointment over the report.

The controversy surrounding the sale of the ship heightened on Monday when the Senior Manager of the State Enterprise Audit Corporation disclosed to the Judgement Debt Commission that the "working papers on the transaction covering the year 2001 has been destroyed."

He said "the documents had outlived their usefulness (after 10 years), moreso, nobody had come out to challenge the 'clean audit report' they submitted on the activities of GNPC since 2001,” as published in the Tuesday edition of the Ghanaian Times.

But speaking on Peace FM, Fred Agbenyo found it "dangerous" that the documents were destroyed just because they had outlived their relevance.

According to him, it does not augur well to find official documents ruined as a result of their life span.

He, therefore, sought a review of the constitutional provision that gives right to government officials to either burn or shred documents which to him, could have served useful purposes for the future.

“That is very, very dangerous. If indeed our laws support that, here in Ghana, when we make transaction, be it foreign transaction or a local transaction and after 6 years, you can shred the document; then it’s very dangerous,” he stated.