John Dramani Mahama, a former leader of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its flagbearer, has questioned how Ghanaian society has recently celebrated people with dubious financial backgrounds.
He urged Ghanaians to reassess their priorities and uphold moral principles and honesty in all facets of their lives.
Speaking at the Church of Pentecost’s National Development Conference, the former president reflected on times when Ghanaian culture was significantly shaped by the importance of communal assistance and opposition to greed and thievery.
“What happened to our value of being each other’s keeper, where communal assistance to each other on our farms and other tasks that we had to undertake, were easily available,” he said.
John Mahama says there is a lot of worry about the current situation, where some people are honoured despite having wealth accumulated from shady sources of income without any investigation into the veracity of their profits.
“What happened to our dislike for greed and theft?
Why do we celebrate persons who today are wealthy with dubious sources of income and yet society is not concerned about what the source of the income is and it is only about the person’s wealth,” the former president added.
The flagbearer’s remarks follow media stories that caused a stir recently regarding Cecilia Dapaah, the beleaguered former minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, and her servants.
According to reports, the former minister’s maids took large sums of foreign currency and millions of Ghanaian cedis from her residence.
Her resignation, an invitation from the Office of the Special Prosecutor, and ultimately her detention were all caused by the news that leaked.
