Mahindra scandal 'corruption at the apex' – Baah

A former head of the Political Science Department at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Richard Amoako Baah, has said the revelation that some vehicles belonging to the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) had been embossed with colours of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) for political campaign purposes, reflected the summit of corruption in government.

Photos circulated on social media last week, of some 50 Mahindra vehicles parked on a compound at a location on the Spintex Road. They had been allegedly rebranded with photos of President John Mahama and were to be used for the NDC’s campaign for the 2016 elections.

The publication of the photos led to the arrest of the Managing Director of Granite and Marble and some of the quarry firm’s security officers by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) on Friday April 1. They were picked up on suspicion that they had taken the photos as the company shared a wall with the address where the cars were parked.

But Dr. Amoako Baah has said the saga signified the highest form of graft in officialdom.

“…The branded vehicles from NCCE. What is that? ...That is corruption to the apex. And so, what does someone have to tell you before you know these things must stop? That is corruption to the apex,” he told Ekow Mensah-Shalders on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3fm on Wednesday April 6, 2016.

He said the arrest of those persons “blowing the whistle that there is something wrong” by the BNI added weight to his claim.

Dr Amoako Baah further expressed concern that state institutions like the BNI had been drawn into doing the bidding of the governing party and said it amounted to “politicisation of everything”, adding: “That is not helping us.”