The government’s big talk about building the capacity of Anti-graft institutions to tackle corruption has not reflected in this year’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as Ghana failed to make any significant progress.
Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC’s), 2023 report released indicated that the perception of Ghanaians about corruption in the country grew from 37% in 2002 to 94% in 2022. The coalition fears corruption is becoming a normal practise in Ghana despite various efforts to curb the menace.
This normalisation, according to the coalition poses threats to the country’s development aspirations to transform, advance inclusive development and as well move this country to a ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ which will translate to an economically independent, confident, peaceful and prosperous nation.
The GACC report also shows that an amount of GH¢17.4 million went into individual pockets as bribes in 2021, showing the magnitude of administrative corruption in the country.
In other to fight against this menace, the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) is advocating for the establishment of a specialized anti-corruption court to promote the fight against corruption.
This is part of recommendations contained in the GACC’s 2023 Corruption Report released on Friday ahead of the International Anti-Corruption Day on Saturday, 9 December.
According to GACC programmes officer Samuel Harrison-Cudjoe, Addressing the problem of corruption is critical now more than ever as corruption is a major contributor to the country’s current economic woes as evinced by several reports including that of the Auditor General’s report on Government of Ghana’s COVID-19 expenditure.
“We have seen election related corruption and vote buying and this is worrying because if we do not deal with this election related corruption and vote buying, then we may not win the fight against corruption because it will have an effect on the kind of losses that we make.”
Mr Harrison-Cudjoe said corruption has now become normalized among the system which we did not have to get to this level. But this is where we have gotten to because our existing legal frameworks are either not rigid enough or not binding enough to instill that discipline amongst public officials.
To him, citizens are with serious doubts that people will simply get away with even when their misconduct is glaring, because our laws do not seem to prohibit us. Stressing that “as a country, we need to invest substantially and government needs to take the lead in this universe of potential instead of Anti-corruption institutions and also intensify the implementation of Anti-corruption laws.
He continued that, “our political class has not demonstrated to us that there is a price to pay for corruption acts. And so they feel that the political leadership need to be up and doing when it comes to showing that there is a price to pay.”
On her part, the executive secretary of Ghana Anti-corruption Coalition (GACC), Beauty Emefa Narteh, said the Ghana Anti-corruption Coalition is determined to intensify its efforts at supporting the fight against corruption and corruption related activities on Ghana.
According to her, the political leadership must also demonstrate that there is a personal price to pay for corruption by speeding u the investigation and prosecution of corruption cases as well as recovery of proceeds of corruption.
The executive secretary therefore urged the various stakeholders to put measures in place to avert normalisation of corruption in the country.