PPP postpones demonstration to September
The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) on Thursday postponed its intended anti-corruption crusade demonstration to September 10.
The announcement was made by Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, National Chairman of the PPP at a news conference in Accra, followed an earlier rejection of the police to protect the party for the demonstration on July 26.
He said the party had followed due process in asking for police protection for the demonstration, but the Ghana Police Service refused the request based on the grounds that demonstrations have been banned until the Supreme Court ruling on the 2012 election petition.
Nii Brew-Hammond said as a law abiding body anticipating that the Supreme Court verdict would end in August, it would not seek confrontation with the police Service, hence the postponement of the demonstration.
He said the demonstrators would take the route along the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, from Kwame Nkrumah Circle through Kantamanto and converge at the Old Polo Grounds to read a statement.
He said PPP would not be deterred by any obstructions to undertake its constitutional and statutory obligation but would commit itself to rid the country of the massive corruption that has currently engulfed both public and private sectors.
Nii Brew-Hammond challenged its leadership to take full responsibility of all actions and in-actions to ensure higher principles and truth.
He said the party is not accusing anyone of being corrupt but those ruling must lead by example for others to emulate.
Nii Brew- Hammond said the party is of the view that it is not enough for people to sit at radio and television studios and at home to claim they are not corrupt.
He said transparency, accountability, truth and personal discipline are needed to move the country into a higher level of performance and give the people the opportunity to enjoy a world class standard of living.
According to the party, the current government system and culture enables corruption to fester.
Nii Brew-Hammond said corruption robs Ghanaians of about GHȼ 3 billion annually, an amount, which could make free, compulsory, continuous education from kindergarten to senior high school possible and cater for quality health care and improve infrastructure among other things.
The PPP cited cases of reported corruption including the abuse of judgement debts and revelations from the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Development Agency (GYEEDA) report.
Nii Brew-Hammond said the PPP joins in the call to President John Dramani Mahama to make the GYEEDA report public without any further delay, to ensure transparency, probity and accountability and also take steps to punish persons cited to have misappropriated public funds.
The party suggested that the Office of the Attorney-General should be turned into an Independent Prosecutor’s Office separate from the Ministry of Justice in order to remove it from the negative influence of partisan politics and make it more effective in dealing with all forms of corruption and corruptible practices.
It called for the enforcement of the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive to strengthen checks and balances and also ensure the non-partisan patronage of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies by making them independent from the executive.
Nii Brew- Hammond said the PPP also proposes that a Ministry of Public Service should be established to seek improvement in the way work is done and take steps to strengthen public institutions.
He called on all well-meaning Ghanaians to join the party in its anti-corruption crusade to block all revenue leakages and secure more funds for the country’s transformational initiatives in education, health care and job creation.
Source: GNA