We reject 2nd most corrupt tag - President
President John Dramani Mahama has dismissed the interpretation put on the recent Transparency International (TI) report that Ghana is the second most corrupt country in Africa.
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“We reject it completely”, he said at the opening of the second high-level conference on the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) in Accra on Wednesday.
The President explained that there was no ranking in the TI report.
The conference, which had the theme, “NACAP – Ghana United against Corruption,” was held to commemorate the United Nations World Anti-Corruption Day.
Delving further into the report, known as the Global Corruption Barometer, which was conducted in 28 countries, the President said, “This report is not the more famous Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published regularly by Transparency International.”
He explained that the objective of the Global Corruption Barometer was to seek views of citizens on how corruption had changed in their countries over the past 12 months.
“This report was not an index and did not seek to rank all countries in order of perception of corruption as the CPI normally does,” the President stressed, adding that it was to avoid the wrong interpretations to the report that the survey methodology stated categorically that, ‘the report of each country was based on the subjective perceptions and experiences of citizens rather than an assessment against a common objective benchmark.’
“Suddenly, in our highly charged political environment, this survey was wrongly interpreted as placing Ghana as the second most corrupt country in Africa," President Mahama said.
He stated that in spite of the attempts by institutions that sponsored the survey to correct the false interpretation, leading politicians continued to perpetrate the falsehood.
Not enthused about the development, the President asked, “What can be the motivation for a section of our people to be so obsessed in trying to paint such an undignified title for ourselves at the expense of our nation’s dignity and our international image?”
Role of media
He also took a serious view of the way a section of the media were fuelling the wrong and damaging picture of the country.
“Sad to say, many of our media networks, including our own respected national daily, the Daily Graphic, also ran along with this falsehood and got the entire country engaged in a conversation that shouldn’t have taken place.
“Not only did the conversation end up misleading the Ghanaian people, it indeed also gave our country undeserved negative image among the comity of nations,” the President said.
He observed that the fight against corruption would be difficult if the canker was viewed with political lenses.
To achieve results, he said the media had a huge role to play and urged it to partner the government in that regard.
Specific corruption cases President Mahama explained
to explain how the government had dealt with some of the corruption cases in the country in recent times.
On the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) matter for instance, he said GHc20.4 million of loans illegally granted to service providers, including rLG, CraftPro and Asongtaba, had been recovered, adding that he had asked the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) and their collaborative organisations to recover the outstanding GHc40.5 million by the end of this year.
On the corruption that rocked the National Service Scheme (NSS), the President said 33 officers, including the former Executive Director and his deputy, were currently before court on various charges while 130 others were yet to be prosecuted.
A total amount of GHc18.5 million had been recovered while 163 officers had been dismissed.
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Touching on the Savanna Accelerated Development Agency (SADA), he said a comprehensive report on an audit of the organisation, including recommendations, were ready and would be published in due course.
The President further mentioned investigations undertaken by Anas Aremeyaw Anas and said the fact that action had been taken on the various cases indicated the government’s commitment to fight corruption to the fullest.
Taking a look at the Sole Commissioner’s report on Judgement Debt, the President said even before the presentation of the report, the Attorney General commenced robust defence of judgement debts and so far, the country had successfully resisted the payment of $900 million in international claims and over $10 million in domestic claims.
Political risk
President Mahama said every government faced political risk in tackling corruption .
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“In the past even though we’ve all been aware of the existence of corruption in many facets of our public service , some past governments have been unwilling to take the risk of exposing and prosecuting corruption. Prosecutions that have occurred have mostly been on political opponents after losing power,” he said.
He said some people had failed to notice that the perception that corruption had increased was against the fact that the government had brought out hidden corruption.
“This is a risk my government will accept and a challenge we are willing to confront,” the President stated .
Implementing NACAP
On the implementation of NACAP, the President took a serious view that only 19 out of the 43 institutions that were given the reporting tool and trained on how to use it reported on the usage of the tool during the first year of implementation.
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He warned that heads of the institutions would be sanctioned if they failed to comply as soon as possible.
Other speakers
In his address, the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Ghana, Mr William Hanna, said the EU and its member states had committed themselves to align current and future assistance to Ghana with priorities and objectives identified in the overall country strategy entitled, “ Leveraging Partnerships for Shared Growth and Development.”
He said the EU accepted the fact that corruption had a huge cost to society, adding that “ So as we launch our EU programme to support Ghana’s fight against corruption, and to enhance the rule of law and accountability, we look to the government of Ghana to show renewed commitment to this area..."
The acting Commissioner of the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Mr Richard Quayson , took the participants through the progress report of NACAP in the first year.
A message from the United Nations Secretary-General was also read at the function. The National Anti Corruption Plan was developed in 2012 following intensive consultations at the national, regional and district levels.
It is a national plan of action to combat corruption in Ghana in the next 10 years.