The Director of the Centre of Migration, Security and International Relations, SDD University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), has urged the Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL) team to listen to the Ghanaians in the discharge of its duties.

Professor Elijah Yendaw expressed confidence that some members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Civil Society Organisations in the country were willing to provide vital information that would be useful to the ORAL’s corruption investigations.

He was speaking in an interview in Wa following the announcement of the ORAL team by President-elect, John Mahama.

The ORAL team comprised Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency in the Volta Region; Martin Kpebu, a private legal practitioner; Daniel Domelevo, a former Auditor General; Retired Commissioner of Police, Kofi Boakye; and Raymond Acher, an investigative journalist.

Mr Mahama’s anti-corruption initiative was aimed at recovering all public resources that had been looted by public officials.

While commending Mr Mahama for constituting the ORAL team, Prof. Yendaw expressed confidence in the team’s ability to do a “good job” in recovering all state resources lost through corruption.

He indicated that university professors and administrators and other well-meaning Ghanaians took to the streets to campaign for Mr Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the 2024 election due to the confidence they had in the policy proposals of the NDC, especially to recover all loots.

“Having campaigned vigorously to ensure that the NDC comes back and that John Mahama returned to the Flagstaff House, it was based on several principles and many of the policies that the NDC rolled out.

“One key policy that actually touched me the most had to do with the ORAL, which is Operation Recover All Loots, so, my expectation is for the team to go all out and listen to the Ghanaian people.

“I am happy even several ardent supporters of the NPP are willing to present evidence”, Prof. Yendaw, also the Upper West Regional Coordinator of the Progressive Intellectuals (PI), an NDC-affiliate group of University Lecturers and Administrators, explained.

He observed that if the President-elect, Mr Mahama, was able to “walk his talk” by holding public officials accountable for their deeds through the ORAL, it would increase the confidence of Ghanaians in the NDC and the NPP would remain in opposition for a long time.

Prof. Yendaw also encouraged the ORAL team to be vigilant and expand its activities beyond the past activities of the Akufo-Addo-led government to the transitional period since corruption could be perpetuated during that period.