Politicisation of issues hampering fight against corruption — Kan-Dapaah
The Executive Director of Financial Accountability and Transparency Africa, a think-tank, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, has observed that the politicisation of every issue raised in the country is killing the fight against corruption.
He said the practice must be stopped if the fight against corruption was to be won, stressing, “Let’s not deceive ourselves into thinking that corruption is of recent origin or that it only started during the NDC administration. It has been there for years.”
Mr Kan-Dapaah was contributing to a discussion at a stakeholders’ dissemination meeting on “Speak Up”, a media watch project.
“Speak Up”
The 14-month project, which was undertaken by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), in partnership with the Global Media Alliance (GMA), evolved from the perception among a section of the public that public officials were corrupt.
The ultimate goal of the project is to educate the public to patronise the Whistle Blowers’ Act, passed in 2006.
The project revealed that as few as 10 people have so far patronised the act since its inception, a development participants agreed was not encouraging.
Corruption
Mr Kan-Dapaah said the fight against corruption should not be about a political party, explaining that “we are talking about the state of corruption in our economy”.
He said the problem with corruption in the public sector was that public officials monopolised the services they rendered, thereby exposing themselves to the tendency of corruption.
That was why there was the need for accountability institutions to demand accountability from such officials, he added.
Presenting the findings of the project, the GMA Lead Officer of the project, Mr Martin Ankrah, said the project identified a gap between anti-corruption agencies and the citizenry.
He said the project indicated that most people did not know where and who to report corruption cases to, while those who knew were afraid of being victimised.
Recommendations
The report, according to him, observed that only CHRAJ, among the eight institutions identified to handle cases of corruption, had a desk dedicated to it.
He appealed to the Ghana Police Service to establish a similar desk, since policemen were closer to the public.
He also recommended the inclusion of the anti-corruption campaign in the school curriculum to inculcate the fight against corruption in children at an early age.
Collective responsibility
A Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mr Richard Quayson, said the fight against corruption was a shared responsibility.
He stressed that the country had gone beyond relying solely on anti-corruption bodies to fight corruption to the inclusion of both civil society and the media.
The Deputy Team Leader of STAR-Ghana, Mrs Mary Tobbin Osei, for her part, said the focus of her organisation was to promote accountability, explaining that corruption was pervasive in a situation of limited accountability.
The Executive Secretary of the GACC, Mrs Lynda Ofori-Kwafo, who welcomed the participants, said Ghana had good legislation with which to fight corruption, yet latest surveys had revealed that perception of corruption was still high.
