An anti-graft campaigner, Vitus Azeem, has lamented the state of the country in its ability to fight corruption.
According to him, government has failed in its efforts to fight and minimize corruption in the country. He revealed that there is the need for state institutions assigned to tackle corruption to do due diligence in the matter.
Mr Azeem stated that as public institutions, if they are working in silence, it is very difficult for people to know what they are doing.
“For me, I will say that we failed in our efforts to curb or at least minimize corruption. We have failed because for us, succeeding in dealing with corruption involves promptly investigating credible allegations of corruption and recovering monies or prosecuting those that are found to be implicated. This, we don’t see much of especially even from the anti-corruption state institutions…”
Vitus Azeem
Mr Azeem explained that the other side of the problem of growing corruption in the country has to do with government’s seeming posture of “defending corruption” rather than dealing with it.
Citing an alleged comment President Akufo-Addo made on Akonta mining implication in illegal mining despite the Office of the Special Prosecutor move in investigating the incident, he noted that the President should have refrained from getting involved in the matter.
“So, when you come up upfront, to already defend an allegation, and you are waiting for the state institution you put in place to carry out investigations, that is unfortunate.”
Vitus Azeem
Government’s performance in fighting corruption
On his part, a political scientist, Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, speaking on his reflection of government’s performance in governance and corruption in 2022, he stated that on the issue of corruption, even though government did its best, the country is still struggling to deal with the canker of corruption.
Dr Asah Asante indicated that it has been a very difficult journey towards the fight against the problem. Owing to this, he explained that he doesn’t know how government is going to deal with it since it requires all seriousness to address the issue.
“Transparency International report indicates that we are about 43% and their explanation is that the closer you are to zero, the more corrupt you are… So, from that point, you will realize that even though we are putting in more measures in place, perception of corruption was very high and we heard a number of reports also within the system, including the civil society groups…”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante
The political scientist revealed that government is only paying lip-service to resolving corruption and its refusal to change it prolongs the fight against corruption.
“If you look at the money that goes through our fingers relative to corruption, it is huge. Ghana Integrity Initiative has been telling us that close to about $3 billion we lose to corruption yearly. Look at the money we are getting from IMF and all that, if we are able to manage corruption well, we’ll get the governance architecture right and everybody will be home…”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante
Commenting on the waste recorded by the Auditor General’s report, Dr Asah-Asante underscored those financial irregularities within the public sector further entrenched corruption in the country. He revealed that a lot of resources gets used wrongly and this affects Ghanaians at large. Governance, he described, fundamentally talks about the use of state resources to make life better for human beings, and there is the need to address it.
“So, it tells you that we are not able to manage resources very well for the population of this country [and] that is a big blot on our governance credentials that in 2023, I expect the government to right the wrong.”
Dr Kwame Asah-Asante
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