President Mills has lost moral grounds to fight corruption - Rawlings

Former President Rawlings         Former President Jerry John Rawlings, has observed that the Mills led administration has lost the moral high ground to fight corruption. He stressed that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has failed to put in place the machinery to investigate the corrupt activities of the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) officials. He said the inability of the government to investigate corruption against former government officials had emboldened others in strategic state institutions, to engage in massive corruption that is causing the country millions of cedis. Former President Rawlings made the observation when he addressed thousands of people, including members of the June 4 Movement and other affiliated NDC bodies at the Tamale Jubilee Park on Friday to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the June 4 uprising. The first June 4 anniversary to be celebrated outside the national capital was on the theme: "The youth, our future." Former President Rawlings said a lot of precious political time was being squandered as the Mills administration had six months to put in place investigative machinery to deal with cases of corruption against officials at the district level in the previous regime and restore confidence in the people. He alleged that government was trying to corrupt the party structures of the NDC, and was shameful that it had to use money, other inducements and barricades of soldiers to prevent some party members from attending the recent NDC delegates congress held at Tamale to elect the party's national executives. He claimed that some personalities within the government who could not stand up to the ideals of June 4 had sponsored people to go to NPP radio stations to lambast and distort what the June 4 uprising stood for. "The energy of June 4 is what they should be tapping into and not trying to destroy it," Former President Rawlings said. He said June 4 1979 was a divine intervention against corruption and injustice and brought into being the principles of probity, accountability and transparency which would always remain as a standard bearer for the youth to uphold. He said June 4 also rekindled the spirit of patriotism, volunteerism and loyalty and expressed regret that after 31 years these ideals had suffered some set back, adding: "Our own government does not seem to be performing as well as we all expected. This is most unfortunate." Former President Rawlings noted that of late various national monuments and activities were being organised in honour of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and said although the late President deserved this he would have been much happier if the government had continued to implement some of his programmes aimed at improving the lives of the people. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, President of the 31 December Women's Movement said the National Youth Employment Programme as currently structured is not working well. She called on the State to restructure the programme and make resources available to it to create employment for the youth. She said there are many young graduates walking on the streets without jobs and called on government to make the youth the centre of all policies. Nana Konadu urged the illiterate unemployed youth to educate themselves through the non-formal education system and acquire skills that would make them employable. She said it was important for policy makers to realise that the majority of the population are made up of the youth and therefore the need for programmes to that would better their lives. Source: GNA