Former chairperson of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Professor Emeritus Stephen Adei, has stated that he would publicly celebrate President John Dramani Mahama if he is able to convincingly fight corruption during his tenure.
Speaking on TV3’s news analysis show Key Points, monitored by GhanaWeb, Prof. Adei, a renowned leadership and governance expert, said that despite his advanced age, he would physically carry President Mahama in appreciation if he succeeds in the war against corruption.
“Fighting corruption is so important that anybody who succeeds—even though I am an old man—I will do push-ups, and I would physically put him on my back because… yes, I have put it down. I would really go and put John on my back and carry him because it is the bane of our underdevelopment,” Prof. Adei stated.
President Mahama, soon after his election, named a five-member anti-corruption team, Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL), to gather information on suspected graft. The team is chaired by Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongu.
Mahama, in the lead-up to the 2024 general election—which he won convincingly—promised to recover corruption proceeds and hold perpetrators accountable if he assumed office.
The Deputy Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Rev. Richard Quayson, at an event in 2018, revealed that Ghana loses more than $3 billion every year through corruption.
This amount was said to be about 300 percent of all the aid Ghana receives in the same period, according to a study by IMANI, which analyzed procurement losses in the Auditor General’s reports between 2012 and 2014 and compared them to the aid received by the country.
The loss of money through corruption typically occurs in the area of public procurement, with public officials inflating contract prices for the provision of goods or services.
Since 2017, Ghana’s score on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has shown slight improvement from its low point that year—a score of 40 on a scale from 0 (“highly corrupt”) to 100 (“very clean”). Ghana’s score rose to 43 by 2020 and remained there until 2024, when it dropped to 42.
If President John Dramani Mahama is able to solve the problem of corruption, I would carry him on my back – Professor Stephen Adei#TheKeyPoints pic.twitter.com/zDFtbPr8HY
— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) March 8, 2025
KA
Meanwhile, watch this Ghana Month special edition of People and Places as we hear the story of how the head of Kwame Nkrumah’s bronze statue was returned after 43 years, below: