ORAL is saving Ghana from devastating corruption - Ablakwa tells Appointments Committee

He Minister designate for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has described the government’s Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) as a master stroke that has saved the country a chunk of resources, which otherwise would have been lost to corruption.

He, for instance, cited how since the establishment of ORAL, the team had received information from the public, helping to save the country's 20 state bungalows from being demolished.

He said the bungalows were being occupied by staff of the research department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

“Bulldozers had moved in but because they called the ORAL secretariat and we then called the National Security to take action, they were able to protect these bungalows,” the former Ranking Member on the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament said.

Let’s support President

Appearing before the Appointments Committee for his confirmation hearing yesterday, Mr Ablakwa said “ORAL is a master stroke for which President John Mahama ought to be commended.

“President Mahama has saved this country a great deal with the ORAL and all of us must support ORAL,” he said.

Mr Ablakwa said this when the National Democratic Congress MP for Pusiga, Laadi Ayii Ayamba, asked what ORAL was going to do so that all that Mr Ablakwa and his team had done would not go to waste and Ghanaians would benefit from it following his appointment.

She also quizzed how much ORAL had saved Ghanaians from corrupt activities that had bedevilled the country.

International dimension

As the Chairman of the five-member ORAL preparatory committee, Mr Ablakwa said one of the jobs he was proud of and would remain ever so proud of was “this sacrificial job to chair ORAL”.

He said ORAL was a major plank in President Mahama’s anti-corruption drive.

Insisting that ORAL had an international dimension, Mr Ablakwa told the committee that former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had been an ORAL champion in the international arena in the past.

He said the former President had advocated reparation for Ghana’s colonial masters who supposedly looted Africa to return the artefacts and money they looted.

“So, I am so shocked that our friends who started ORAL in the international arena even before President Mahama won the election when they come home, they do not want to hear ORAL.

“You want the British, the French and the Dutch to return the loots, but back home, you want looters to go scot-free and I find it really contradictory,” he said.

Identifying other international dimension of ORAL, Mr Ablakwa said if one checked ECOWAS protocol, as well as the African Union and United Nations charters, anti-corruption was a major plank.

“According to the World Bank, Africa is losing about $88 billion every year because of corruption and imagine what the money will do for the people if it stays in the continent and is used for the development of the people’s welfare and how the continent will look like,” he said.

Expressing his willingness to provide a tall list of money that could be retrieved by the state from corrupt public officials, he said Ghana could get back $2.5 million invested in the Accra Sky Train, $12 million in the Agyapa Royalty deal and $58 million from the National Cathedral construction.

Regional integration

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Bosome Freho, Nana Asafo-Adjei, expressed worry over how neighbouring countries within the ECOWAS region would be disappointed on the position President Mahama had taken on establishing relations with the three Alliance for Sahel States when that was against the position taken by ECOWAS.

Responding, Mr Ablakwa said indications were that Ghana’s neighbours were rather impressed with President Mahama’s approach, a reason “all of them” attended his presidential inauguration in Accra.

He said even before President Mahama’s intervention, ECOWAS did not alienate those three states — Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger — but took steps to appoint an envoy to talk to them to go to the bloc.

Ghana’s position

Mr Asafo-Adjei also drew the nominee’s attention that when it came to Kosovo and Serbia, Palestine and Israel, the past government had a position and, therefore, sought to know Mr Ablakwa’s position vis-à-vis that of President Mahama with those countries.

Mr Ablakwa, making reference to Ghana’s foreign policy as presented to Parliament by Dr Kwame Nkrumah on December 16, 1959, said Ghana’s foreign policy had been positively neutral and that the country would not look left or right but look forward.

He said it was for such reason that Kwame Nkrumah established the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 with his colleagues.

Consular funds

The MP for La Dadekotopon, Rita Naa Odoley Sowah, asked how the nominee would make Ghana’s embassies and high commissions more responsive to Ghanaians in the diaspora.

Mr Ablakwa said Ghanaians in the diaspora were concerned about how the country’s embassies and high commissions could be more responsive, and that as a ranking member then, he strongly advocated the establishment of a consular fund.