Stop media trial of Mahama 'boys' – Joshua Alabi

A flagbearer hopeful of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Joshua Alabi, has charged the government to use appropriate means to expose and prosecute corruption as far as the appointees of the previous administration are concerned rather than throwing their names in the media.

“If NDC people have stolen monies, the courts are there, Special Prosecutor, too is there…but if you just shake your head and arbitrarily say this person or that person has stolen money, it is not the right way to go,” he stated.

Speaking to Adom FM’s Captain Smart on Monday, 16 April 2018, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies (UPSA), said: “There are processes that can be used to determine if someone has stolen money… let’s allow the system to work than to use the media to judge people and then sentence them”.

He condemned the practice of labeling every past government official as corrupt whenever a new government takes office, and admonished state authorities to use the right channels to prosecute officials found to have acted wrongly.

“Let us let the process bring those who have stolen government money to book and stop using the media to tarnish the image of individuals,” he admonished.

Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has refuted reports that appointees of the erstwhile Mahama administration received double salaries and were willing to refund the extras to the state.

“We must state for the records that contrary to the claims by the Daily Guide, no appointee has offered to make refunds of double salaries,” Minority spokesperson on finance and a former deputy Finance Minister, Cassiel Ato Forson said at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, 10 April 2018.

He accused government of engaging in propaganda and the use of state security to intimidate members of the Minority.

“Our attention has been drawn to a publication in today's Daily Guide newspaper alleging that some 22 Article 71 appointees of the erstwhile Mahama administration were overpaid whilst serving as Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Members of Parliament.



“The said publication can only be a figment of the imagination of a government that continues to betray the trust of the people,” he indicated.

He said government is hounding and intimidating them into silence by using the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to embark on a fruitless fishing expedition against their former appointees.

According to the NDC legislators, the move is intended to silence and cow them into submission so President Akufo-Addo and his government can get away with whatever ills are happening in society.

Mr Forson said as many as 25 sitting MPs were invited for initial investigations but that figure reduced to just seven with the excuse that the CID made mistakes, a situation the Minority believes lends credence to their fears that the Akufo-Addo-led government wants to harass them.