President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the war against corruption will not be won overnight, but, with political will, it will be won.

According to Nana Akufo-Addo as a demonstration of his administration’s commitment to fighting corruption, prosecutions will be initiated where necessary.

He made the comment on Monday when he delivered an address at the 2019 Ghana Bar Association Conference held in Takoradi in the Western Region.

“Where prosecutions are called for, they have been or will be initiated. The war against corruption will not be won overnight, but, with political will, it will be won,” he said.

He said many of the actions taken by his government to deal with alleged acts of corruption were unheard of during the tenure of past administrations.

“The days when the ‘punishment’ of erring public officials was their relocation to the Presidency are over,” he said.

“The Akufo-Addo government is committed to fighting corruption not just in words but in action,” he added.

Corruption scandals

These statements notwithstanding, civil society organisations and many political commentators have scored low marks for the current administration’s commitment to tackle growing corruption allegations.

Related: Ghana up six places in latest anti-money laundering, terrorist financing rankings

Ghana in 2018 received its lowest corruption perception score in four years, making President Akufo-Addo’s one year in office the worst since 2012, according to the latest Global Corruption Perception Index.

The latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released in February 2019 by the local chapter of Transparency International, the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), scored Ghana 40 out of a possible clean score of 100 and ranked the country 81 out of 180 countries assessed.

The index shows that Ghana’s performance has dropped by three points from its 2016 score of 43, and 7 points cumulatively from the 2015 score of 47.

A questionable procurement deal at the National Youth Authority (NYA) has resulted in the dismissal of NYA Chief Executive, Emmanuel Sin-Nyet Asigri, and two of his deputies.

Another recent scandal to hit the administration resulted in the suspension of the Chief Executive Officer of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA), Adjenim Boateng Adjei.

Mr Boateng Adjei is facing the Commission on Human Rights and  Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor for allegedly appropriating contracts to a company that he co-owns with his brother-in-law.

The scandal that hit the concessionaire agreement between Power Distribution Services (PDS) and the Government of Ghana also grabbed headlines for many weeks.