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Honourable Opong-Fosu, Minister at the presidency, has described Professor Kwasi Yankah’s corruption comments about the presidency as a politically motivated agenda to discredit President Mahama.

He said, his comments during The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA–Ghana) Corruption Conference under the theme “Purging the National of Corruption: Demanding Accountability from Public Institutions” which was held on Tuesday, 28th April, 2015, that “the Presidency a safe haven for corruption is a mere conjecture without basis to gain political advantage.”

He questioned how an intellectual can make such an unfounded allegation without any evidence pointing to the fact that, the presidency has been turned into a refuge for corrupt government officials.

He said it is part of their 2016 game plan to use surrogates to make corruption a center stage in their electioneering campaign to confuse the electorate to vote for the NPP.

According to Hon. Opong-Fosu, reshuffling and reassignments are a normal procedure in governance, and wondered how one could come to such a conclusion when only two former ministers have been assigned to the presidency.

He described corruption as a socio-cultural problem fuelled by indiscipline across political social economic and all spheres of life and therefore must be tackled holistically instead of using it as an election tool for political advantage.

To lead this crusade, he said the intellectual; Opinion leaders of this country must play a key role in the anti-corruption drive in order to restore values and instill discipline.

He stressed that if we continue to limit the debate to only the NDC and NPP then we can never win the fight.

Mr. Martin Amidu, a Former Attorney General also accused the presidency of being corrupt, only to realize his mistake and render an apology, but the harm had already been done because, to the ordinary person on the street such comments coming from such credible individuals is the absolute truth.

He therefore advised individuals who are targeting the presidency with corruption to be mindful of the country’s reputation and interest and stop the unnecessary assault at the presidency for their parochial interest.

He practically urged Professor Yankah to prove his worth by providing evidence concerning his comments, instead of creating vacuum of doubt.

Prof. Yankah, academician and President of the Central University College, was also former Dean of Students at the University of Ghana Legon.