The 2012 presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Dr Abu Sakara Foster, has expressed disappointment in President Nana Akufo-Addo’s fight against corruption.

The founder of the National Interest Movement, a civil society platform formed to rally support for an independent alternative to Ghana’s electoral duopoly, told Blessed Sogah on Class91.3FM’s State of the Nation show on Wednesday, 11 December 2019 that President Akufo-Addo’s performance so far, as far as the fight against corruption is concerned, fell below his expectation.

“Given the circumstances available, there’ve been a number of disappointments”, Dr Foster said, explaining: “I expected, one, a more inclusive government – but I’m talking from my own point of view; I expected a stronger fight against corruption because of his reputation and also the stage at which he was at in his life. I felt he would get a strong delivery on this. I just feel that we’ve not made sufficient progress in that direction”.

As far as the agricultural sector is concerned, Dr Foster said: “I felt he brought a focus on agriculture which had not existed previously and the budget has gone up marginally, although I don’t think that it is enough to do the work that needs to be done and to spend in the areas that we need to spend, but you cannot deny the fact that that focus has been there”.

In his judgment, “Now, these things, collectively, if I had to see this person’s performance over this period, I would say: ‘Yes’, but I expected more”.

In a similar manner, Dr Foster said the performance of the erstwhile Mahama administration also fell short of his expectation.

“Now, did I expect more from John Mahama, too? Yes, very much so; he’s a person of my generation, I expected more and, especially as the conditions were very ideal for him”.

“So, on that score, as I said, at the end of the day, I believe that there’s an inherent system in our democracy that tends to shift the focus of government from the things that really matter and that is where we keep hammering that whoever is there, if you don’t address these things at the constitutional level, the attention would always be shifted, because it’s a short-term election, you’re tempted to do those things that will win you an election; even if you say you won’t do them, you end up doing them and we are saying no, let’s make it a longer term period – come once, just six years, let’s look at the first-past-the-post coalition government so you have [the] opposition to form a coalition government and if you’re not doing what you promised the others you would do, they can take you on”, Dr Foster noted.