The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) leadership visited President Akufo-Addo at Jubilee House on August 19, 2021.

It's easy to assume what could be the main topic of discusion, corruption. The President is quite knowledgeable about the topic, which helped him win in 2016 in part. His campaign was based mostly on accusations of mismanagement and corruption against the previous John Mahama administration.

However, many Ghanaians believe that, after six years in office, President Akufo-Addo's high rhetoric on combating corruption, including assertions that he had adopted Investigative Journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas's approach, was nothing more than empty platitudes. Even more concerning, many individuals believe that corruption has gotten worse under his administration, according to Transparency International's corruption perception index.

Since taking office as president, Akufo-Addo has been observed to be lowering his vociferous rhetoric on the issue of corruption. Fact-Check The Fourth Estate, a sister investigative journalism source in Ghana, discovered that during the president's two consecutive State of the Nation Addresses (in January 2021 and March 2021) he avoided mentioning corruption. In reality, Akufo-Addo avoided using any words related to corruption or graft in a combined speech from the two speeches that was approximately 13,000 words long. It was the first time a president had done that in 13 years.

The argument that President Akufo-Addo has funded accountability or anti-corruption agencies more than any other government will undoubtedly come up whenever he decides to discuss corruption.

He reiterated that when he spoke to the GACC's leadership on the Jubilee House floor.

“I don’t think that any government has mobilised resources to give the opportunity for anti-corruption agencies of the state to function as efficiently as this government has done. It is a matter of record,” Akufo-Addo said.

This assertion has been Akufo-Addo's defense against criticism that he made greater promises in the battle against corruption but delivered worse results for more than six years. After a year in office, he first stated this at the 2018 State of the Nation Addresses (SONA):

“I believe it bears repeating here that, thanks to these boring figures, for the first time in a long while, we have been able to provide better budgetary support to the constitutionally-mandated institutions that hold government accountable, i.e. Auditor-General, Parliament, Judiciary, Ministry of Justice, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), and the Police,” he said

In both the 2019 and 2020 SONAs, President Akufo-Addo reiterated the assertion. He said that in 2021, his government had more than doubled the funding expenditures to anti-corruption organizations.

“That is why, within two years of being in office, we more than doubled funding for accountability institutions of state, like CHRAJ, EOCO, the Judiciary and the Auditor General,” Akufo-Addo said.