Former Cal Bank CEO, Frank Adu Jnr, has urged President John Mahama to make the fight against corruption a top priority in his new administration.

The renowned banker warned that without decisive action and real accountability, no economic policy or leadership skill will rescue the country from systemic rot.

Appearing on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday, June 30, Mr. Adu Jnr said, “This country has, as far as I am concerned, two problems; you have the political system and corruption.”

“And if President John Mahama is able to deal with corruption to a large extent and hold people accountable — not just the past government, but his own appointees — he will send the right signal.”

Mr Adu Jnr recounted a personal experience from his time at Cal Bank that highlighted the scale of procurement fraud in government contracts.

“A client of ours brought a contract. The client needed the equivalent of $3 million to finance it. We looked at it and financed it,” he said.

“Between the time of ordering the product and delivery, there was what they call a variation, and government accepted the variation. When the client was paid, he was paid the equivalent of $25 million — eight times the amount.”

He stressed that such levels of inflation in contract sums are devastating and not isolated.

“It doesn’t matter how good your finance minister is, doesn’t matter how good the president is. There is no way that you can deal with an eight-times increase in the price of any product.

"And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It continues up to today. Procurement fraud is critical. It’s killing this country.”

He noted that the problem goes far beyond party lines.

“We’ve seen it all over the place. I don’t want to give examples that would place it in any particular government, but it goes on.

"That kind of corruption — there is no amount of IMF intervention or good governance by the finance minister which is going to curb this.”

To Mr. Adu Jnr, the only path forward is strong leadership willing to confront the problem head-on.

“Until President Mahama decides that, look, I’m going to make sure these things don’t happen, we’re going to have this problem going on.”