Beposo (W/R), July 21, GNA - Dr Edward Mahama, Flag Bearer of the People's National Convention (PNC), on Wednesday said the country's main problem was corruption.

He was inaugurating Shama Constituency branch of PNC at Beposo, near Sekondi.

Dr Mahama said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had not been able to honour its 2000 electoral promise to stem corruption. He said the functions of the Attorney - General and Minister of Justice should be separated to make it possible for the Attorney-General as the State Prosecutor to prosecute politicians especially those of the ruling party, who succumbed to corruption.

Dr Mahama said the NPP had failed to do this and had instead established the Office of Accountability to detect corruption but to date, that Office had not come up with any corruption case. He said the PNC would offer the country honest leadership when voted into power and would ensure that no minister stole State funds. Dr Mahama said the country's politicians were thriving on the ignorance and poverty of the people and unless these cankers were eradicated, poverty alleviation funds would not make any difference in the lives of the ordinary man.

He said the PNC would pass a bill of conflict of interest to debar State functionaries from secretly establishing companies to bid for and execute Government contracts.

Dr Mahama said politicians had not been able to proper diagnose the country's problems since 1992 when the country adopted constitutional rule adding that if the politicians were aware of the problems at all, they did not know how to solve them.

Dr Mahama said Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President demonstrated qualities leaders of the country should possess. He said when Dr Nkrumah became President after Independence he used whatever money was in the State's coffers to undertake viable projects.

Mr Nii Noi, National Organiser of the Party, said many of the businesses set up by Dr Nkrumah had collapsed and these must be revived to offer employment to the youth.

He said Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was a curse to the country and the adoption of the programme by NPP Government amounted to selling the country's birthright.