Blueprint exists on fighting corruption in Ghana — Short

Ghana's first Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Mr Emile Kwame Short, has disclosed that a blueprint for fighting corruption in Ghana has been developed and presented to the government and that all that is needed now is for the political leadership to have the courage to act and put it into effect.

Commissioner Short further disclosed that the blueprint, which was put together by a working group made up of representatives from government, the private sector, Parliament, the Office of the President, several civil society organisations and some development partners was presented to President John Mahama during his tenure as the Vice-President of the country and he handed over the document to Parliament to be discussed and adopted as a national policy document.

Mr Short made these disclosures when he appeared on TARZAN’S TAKE on JOY NEWS TV on Sunday, May 19, 2013.

The blueprint titled, “The NATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION ACTION PLAN (NACAP)”, sets out a 10-year action plan to mount a serious and successful fight against corruption in Ghana.

NACAP defines its key objectives as building public capacity to condemn and fight corruption and make its practice a high-risk, low-gain activity.

It will also institutionalise efficiency, accountability and transparency in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, as well as engage individuals, the media and civil society organisations in reporting and combating corruption.

Others include conducting effective investigations and prosecution of corrupt conduct.

The NACAP blueprint was presented to and validated at a National Conference on Integrity held in October, 2011 in Accra.

The conference brought together over 140 participants from local stakeholders such as government, independent constitutional bodies, civil society organisations (including women’s groups), Ghana’s development partners, international anti-corruption organisations and sections of the general public.

Mr Short was very surprised and disappointed that no action had been taken by Parliament and the Executive to start the implementation of the NACAP blueprint, especially given that its membership was made up of all the major agencies of government, civil society and development partners and problems of corruption appeared to have got worse in the two years since the report was presented to the government.

Membership of NACAP are the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Office of the President, Parliament of Ghana, Judicial Service of Ghana and the Attorney General’s Department.

Others are the National Development Planning Commission, Public Services Commission, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Ghana Integrity Initiative and Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition.

The rest are Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, The Justice & Human Rights Institute, African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption (APNAC Africa), development partners such as Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Department for International Development (DFID) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The CHRAJ provided coordination and logistics support.