GII to strengthen public accountability

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has assured the citizenry that it would contribute to strengthening public accountability, rule of law and responsiveness.

This, it said, would be done through the empowerment of civil society, the media and the promotion of reforms on preventive anti-corruption measures.GII noted with concern that Ghana faced governance deficits-corruption, limited accountability and weak rule of law enforcement.

That, it added made the country score below average on the government Effectiveness Index (48.2 %) between 2010 and 2019 and the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 43 % over the last four years (2020—2023).

The Head of the Finance Department at the GII, Benedict Doh, who was the leader of the facilitators, said this at a two-day training workshop for citizens on forms of corruption and reporting avenues for civil society organisations (CSOs) at Somanya in the Yilo Krobo Municipality in the Eastern Region.

Training

The training workshop, which was sponsored by the European Union (was on Strengthening Accountability, Rule of Law and Institutional Strengthening (SARIS) project), was aimed at mobilising, empowering and incentivising citizens including women, youth and citizens groups to actively report and speak against corruption. It was also to increase the use of the media and investigative journalism in detecting and exposing corruption.

It is being implemented in 24 districts and municipalities selected from four zones, namely: the northern belt, the middle belt, the southern belt and the coastal belt of Ghana with Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), GII and Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) as implementers.

Furthermore, it was to advocate reforms of public ethics regulations including public asset declaration, campaign financing regulations and internal control regime, monitor the compliance of public procurement law, conflict of interest and the implementation of audit recommendations and also promote inter-agency.  

Mr Doh said efforts by citizens and CSOs to improve accountability and the rule of law in Ghana had been sporadic and often impeded by limited awareness of existing structures and tools.

To address that, he said CDD-Ghana, GII and GACC were implementing the project SARIS in Ghana. “This project aims to enhance the watchdog role of CSOs to advocate and promote reforms on accountability and rule of law in the country,” he added.

The Programmes and Research Officer of GII, Jacob Tetteh Ahuno, a co-facilitator of the workshop urged CSOs, community-based organisations, citizens and citizens groups including women, youth and persons living with disabilities, media, political parties, public anti-corruption institutions such as Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Public Procurement Authority, Internal Audit Agency and the metropolitan, municipal and districts assemblies to be committed to achieving the aims and objectives of the project.

The Yilo Krobo Municipal Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Henrietta Glikpo, said even though the commission was educating the public on civic issues, those who were trained would serve as supporting staff for the commission to intensify public education on corruption and its related issues.

All the participants resolved to put what they had learnt into action to ensure they helped eliminate corruption which had become a canker in the Ghanaian society.