The Eastern Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Adi Ankamah has warned that the government would not tolerate any civil servant who would obstruct efforts to bring about the desired positive change in the country during its tenure of office.

He, therefore, asked those civil servants who think they could not serve under the administration to "put down their pens and leave".

Nana Ankamah was speaking at a reception held by the Eastern Regional co-ordinating Council for a cross section of the people at the Koforidua Residency on Monday, as part of the 9th anniversary of the Fourth Republic and the First anniversary of the NPP administration.

He emphasised the government's policy of "zero tolerance for corruption" and accused public servants of being those perpetrating corruption in the system rather than the politicians and cited the prevalence of the "ghost" names syndrome.

He said, even though, some heads of departments were aware of the existence of such ghost names, they chose to collude in the vice to the detriment of the economy, saying "from now, let the ghosts remain in the cemetery to allow the living develop the country".

Nana Ankamah denounced those who initially described the stabilisation of the cedi as "artificial" and stated that "it is simply because the NPP decided to avoid waste in the system and cut its coat according to its cloth."

He said the government would solve the perennial water problem of the New Juaben Municipality by the end of its term of office.

The Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Narh Dometey commended the security services and public servants for their hard work during the past year but said there was "room for improvement this year to make the positive change to be felt more everywhere by everybody".

He also commended the media in the region for projecting its activities to the rest of the country and expressed the hope that this would continue.

Mr Dometey reminded the NPP activists that the attainment of the positive change devolved on their ability to galvanise the people to build on the foundation laid last year.