The Ghanaian Chronicle writes that Deputy British High Commissioner, Mr. Craig John Murray, known to be an open minded, respected and free-speaking diplomat, shocked the audience with his intervention at the ‘Information for Accountability’ workshop in Accra.
Mr. Craig is reported in the lead story of the paper as having declared that corruption in Ghana is a problem and pointed accusing fingers at the government in the area of award of contracts.
According to him, even foreigners awarded contracts are not excused or spared but made to pay a percentage sum of money of the value of the contracts to the government, even after they had met all the procedure that is required of them.
Craig, unmoved by the impact of his outburst on his audience, typified by their shocked silence, proceeded to issue a challenge to anybody present who was unaware of the situation or experience to show by hand or come out to prove him wrong.
“No one did. No one could, and two Ministers in the room, Messrs Nii Adjei Boye Sekan (Presidential Staffer) and Mr. John Mahama, the communications man, winced uncomfortably”, the Chronicle said.
The Deputy High Commissioner said the recent World Bank conference on Ghana gave enough evidence that the international community was disappointed with the government’s restructuring and handling of the economy.
He said there had been too much privatisation without the expected returns, adding that there had been instances where some of those who bought privatised companies did not have money to invest in the project.
The last blow, the Chronicle says, was when Craig said the nation was not creditworthy, stating that international donors’ continued grants to her was because of their sympathy for Ghana.
