Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin, has questioned President Akufo-Addo’s commitment in fighting corruption, alleging that his campaigns were funded by some Ghanaians in his attempts to become President of Ghana.

He said his financiers were not “Father Christmas”, and will seek to also benefit from his current position.

“The people who have sponsored Nana Akufo-Addo are in the shadow, they are calling the shots, and I’m being brutally frank. “We can’t fight corruption, and when I speak out then I am lambasted and insulted, but that is the truth and you cannot take it away.

Mr Bagbin, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli-Kaleo, expressed these sentiments when he was speaking to Students’ Parliament at the University of Education, Winneba- Kumasi campus, on the theme, ‘Parliamentary democracy in Ghana- a practitioner perspective.’

“Recently I was talking about Nana Akufo-Addo and I said well after fighting three world wars and becoming president, all those three world wars people funded you and now you say you are going to fight corruption, you think they are “Father Christmas?” “I’m charging the President to lead the way in cleansing the system, redefine politics and also reduce the cost of political business in Ghana.

“So what I expect the President to do is to lead us to cleanse the system, we change the system, we redefine politics, we redefine political campaign, we reduce the cost of doing business and make sure it is free. “Once you are able to do that you can still have your conscience, your integrity, your willpower and you can take decisions that will benefit the people of Ghana.

Mr. Bagbin, one of Ghana’s longest serving legislators, also touched on corruption and described it as systemic, saying, “I hear people talking about corruption everyday and everybody knows that corruption is a canker, it is killing us and we are pretending that we are committed to fighting it.

“But we all know that corruption is systemic, if you want to curb corruption, you change the system and it can only be curbed if the system is changed,” he stressed.