Ghana President-elect, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has announced the setting up of the Office of a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the humongous issues of corruption that rocked the out-going NDC government.

The John Mahama led administration was buffeted by several scandals with the Woyome judgement debt saga, the bus branding disaster, the GYEEDA swindle, the SADA diversion and the NSS deceit caused financial loss to the state worth hundreds of million of dollars.

Nana Akufo-Addo campaigned vigorously on investigating such corrupt scandals, and also rooting out graft. With this campaign message holding sway with voters, the former attorney general has announced that an independent investigator with statutory powers will be commissioned to deal with issues of corruption in the country.

He said: " An Office of Special Prosecutor of somebody who will be independent of the Executive and somebody whose remits will be to investigate and tackle issues of corruption.”

“… and hopefully that person is going to be somebody who commands respect of the society and at the same time has an independent mind to make the decisions.”

The 72 year old says politicians who indulge in corrupt practices must not have the immunity to get away with corrupt deals.

The  victorious NPP Presidential candidate insists that the action of investigating issues of corruption must not be done in such a manner that it is misconstrued as a witch-hunt exercise against their political opponents.

“What we have to be careful of in our situation is not to witch-hunt, but at the same time, we ought not to give the impression that those of us in political life are somewhat have some sort of immunity from investigation merely because we are politicians, I don’t think that will be right, we are citizens of Ghana first and foremost," he noted.

Some of the corruption scandals  are highlighted below:

1. Bus branding scandal:

Last year, investigations into the branding of 116 Metro Mass Transit Buses involving GH¢3.6million revealed that the company contracted, Smarttys, over-billed the government to the tune of about GH¢1.9million.

The development provoked public outcry, which compelled the Minister of Transport,  Dzifa Attivor, to resign in December.

The government subsequently reached an agreement with Smarttys for the company to return GH¢1,548,608.04 to government chest.

2. GYEEDA Scandal

In 2013, Manasseh Azure Awuni, a reporter for Joy FM, conducted an investigation in the operations of GYEEDA and uncovered massive corruption, which led to policy change in the running of the agency.

The government set up a five-member committee to probe the allegations further. The committee’s report largely corroborated Manasseh’s findings and made various recommendations to government. As part of the reforms, parliament passed a law to regulate the operations of GYEEDA, which was later renamed Youth Employment Agency (YEA).

His investigation also led to the cancellation of all GYEEDA contracts with service providers, except the contract with Zoomlion Limited. This saved the nation millions of cedis.

3. SADA Scandal

In 2014, Manasseh Azure Awuni‘s investigation revealed that the Ghana’s Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) had misappropriated millions of dollars allocated to it.

The investigations showed that SADA paid GH?32,498,000 to ACICL to plant five million trees in the savannah zone, but could only account for about 700,000 trees.

It also found that SADA spent GH¢15 million on guinea fowls, but could only account for a few of the birds.

The revelation prompted President John Mahama to abrogate SADA’s contracts with Asongtaba Cottage Limited, mangers of the multi-million-cedi guinea fowl project.

4. NSS Scandal

In 2014, officials of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) uncovered a GH¢7.9 million deep-rooted rot at the National Service Secretariat (NSS).

Investigations showed that the amount represented the allowance paid to 22,612 non-existent service people in more than 100 districts across the country.

Twenty district directors of the NSS were picked up for their alleged roles in the malfeasance.

5. Businnes man, Mr. Alfred Woyome was charged with two counts of causing financial loss to the state and defrauding by false pretense after he was accused of illegally receiving 51 million Ghana Cedis in 2010 for his role in the construction of stadia for the CAN 2008 tournament held in Ghana. But Justice Ajet-Nasam said the prosecution did a shoddy job and failed to prove its case against the accused person and thus he was freed.