A prominent member of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Kobina Arthur Kennedy, has sided with former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu’s description of President Akufo-Addo as the “mother serpent of corruption.”
The US-based medical practitioner believes that the president has shown no dedication to the anti-corruption cause. According to him, the president’s posture and actions towards sensitive issues prove him right.
“The problem is not forming new institutions; it is in our hearts. The president’s body language, his temperament and attitude is not geared towards fighting corruption, and Martin Amidu was right that he is the mother serpent of corruption…” he told JoyNews during an interview.
He added: “It is a very fair assessment, look at who he appointed as head of the Public Procurement Authority, the person he appointed as head of Public Procurement Authority to begin with had ethical challenges under the Kufuor administration, so, it is not like people didn’t know who he was.
“But he got the job anyway. Then the president along the line of course is talking about it, he says that this time around we even have a Minister for Public Procurement.
“Not only that, we have a board of directors for the Public Procurement Authority. In spite of that, the head of Public Procurement Authority forms a private company on the side, that bids for contracts and gets them and sells them on the side, and he did that for years under the very noses of his board of directors and the minister who was supposed to take care of procurement.
“And all what it took was Manasseh Azure, one journalist, to expose them. So where was the security agencies? Where was the police? Where was the Attorney General’s Department? Where was anybody?” he questioned.
In a 27-page response to the allegations made by the presidency after his resignation as Special Prosecutor in 2020, Martin Amidu accused President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of being deeply involved in corruption.
Despite initially having trust in the president’s integrity and anti-corruption stance, Amidu claimed that Akufo-Addo’s actions revealed him as a leader who obstructed his efforts to fulfill his duties.
“I resigned my position as the Special Prosecutor because of the traumatic experience I suffered from the reaction of the President who breached his Presidential oath by unlawfully obstructing me from taking any further steps on the Agyapa Royalties Transactions from 20th October 2020 to 1 November 2020.”
“When I met the President on 23rd October 2020, I received the shock of my life when he demanded that I took no further action on the Agyapa royalties transaction anti-corruption assessment report for another week.
“That was when it was divinely revealed to me that the President whom I trusted so much for integrity only looked like the innocent flower of anti-corruption but he was really the mother corruption serpent under the innocent-looking flower,” Martin Amidu wrote of the president.
But President Akufo-Addo has, on several occasions, refuted claims that he does not seek to fight corruption. He clarified that it is not his duty to investigate or sanction individuals accused of corruption, but that of the law enforcement agencies.