The government of President Nana Akufo-Addo has not done enough to fight corruption in the first six months of his administration, former Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Mr Emile Short has said.

In Mr Short’s estimation, the government could have been more upfront in dealing with perpetrators involved in some graft cases detected by the new government such as the $4million National Communication Authority (NCA) scandal, $1.3million Ghana Standards Authority rot as well as the unearthing of ‘ghost names’ on the public payroll.

Three appointees of former President John Mahama are being investigated by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for allegedly dipping their hands into the coffers of the NCA for $4million which they failed to account for.

Information Minister Mustapha Hamid named them as Mr Eugene Baffoe-Bonney, former Board Chairman of the NCA; Mr William Tevie, former Chief Executive Officer of the NCA, and Alhaji Osman, former Deputy National Security Coordinator. Mr Tevie subsequently denied any involvement in graft.

Also, it was revealed a couple of months ago that the former CEO of the Ghana Standards Authority, Dr George Crentsil, took a bribe worth $1.2million from Lemet Construction Company, the firm that was awarded a contract to build a new training school and hostel facility for the institution under the Mahama administration.

Furthermore, an audit conducted by the new management of the Youth Employment Agency detected 16,839 ghost names in a GHS50million payroll fraud.

Speaking to Francis Abban on Accra-based Starr FM on Tuesday, 18 July ahead of the President’s press conference vis-à-vis his first six months in office, Mr Short said: “There has been one case in which there was a kickback of about $1million and we are told that the persons implicated are paying back the amount, then there is the NCA case… there have been other cases. … When you look at the payroll, the ghost names issues, from time to time you hear that ghost names have been removed from the public payroll but you don’t hear anything about the people who were involved in this conspiracy and what action is being taken to name, shame and prosecute them, so, I think that there are quite a number of cases that have occurred in the last six months and I am not so sure that enough has been done to satisfy us that the necessary action required has been taken.”