NCCE, OSP join forces to fight corruption

The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) have joined forces to combat corruption.

The collaboration is to enhance civic education on corruption prevention.

This came to light when the Special Prosecutor (SP), Kissi Agyebeng, paid a courtesy call on the Chairperson of the NCCE, Kathleen Addy, at the Commission’s head office in Accra last Thursday.

In the company of the Chairperson were the Deputy Chairman in charge of Operations and the Deputy Chairman, General Services, Samuel Akuamoah and Victor Brobbey, respectively and other senior management staff.

Initiative

In her welcome remarks, Ms Addy mentioned the thematic areas that drive civic education and added that anti-corruption campaigns form part of the commission’s civic engagements nationwide.

She described as refreshing, the collaboration initiated by the OSP and expressed the readiness and commitment of the Commission to ensure that the partnership yields the expected outcome.

“We have a very competent team with high capacity in their area of profession.

They are dedicated and will do a great job in that regard.

The core strength of the NCCE is public education, and we have the skills to transmit messages to the receiver and help bring about behaviour change.

We are happy about this collaboration, and we look forward to working with you.

“The anti-corruption agenda is a big agenda for our country and collaborations like this are crucial, especially among state institutions, which tend to be more impactful and cost-effective,” she said.

Mandate

Mr Agyebeng, for his part, stressed measures to curtail corruption and corruption-related activities and indicated that his outfit had a mandate to educate the citizenry, which set the foundation for the collaboration with NCCE.

He alluded to the public education skills, competencies, capacity, reach and experience of the NCCE, which his Office intended to leverage.

“You have that particular constitutional mandate of public education, and we (the OSP) have only been given a little bit of it in respect of anti-corruption. So, it will be a step in the right direction to mount our work on yours,” he added.

In the same vein, he intimated that NCCE’s decentralised structure served as a strategic potent resource that the OSP could harness to ensure that the anti-corruption message reached every nook and cranny of the country. 

Investigation

Beyond investigating corruption and corruption-related offences, prosecuting suspected offenders, and recovering and managing assets from such situations, the SP mentioned that, taking steps to prevent corruption and corruption-related offences was a very fundamental pillar of the Office, which, according to him, formed about 70 of the OSP’s mandate.

“I look forward to a day where citizens will say, I won’t do this because the OSP will come after me due to the preventive measures put in place and not just the prosecution pillar, which is only a minute portion of the scheme of affairs,” he stated.