A lawyer, Martin Kpebu, has revealed that weak leaders in the country are an impediment to the fight against corruption.
According to him, his initial reaction to a survey churned out by the Ghana Statistical Service on the corruption rate in the country is “just further confirmation that corruption is a huge problem and that’s putting it very mildly”. He noted that in actual fact, he belongs to the school of thought which asserts that it is “our biggest problem” as a nation.
Mr Kpebu indicated that prior to the report by the GSS, the Auditor General’s report between 2016 and 2020, proved that Ghana lost GHC48 billion to corruption and a conversion of the money into old currency will run into trillions of Ghana cedis.
“So, the point is that, this report just adds on; people who say corruption is a perception don’t live in Ghana. It’s always been a problem from Kwame Nkrumah’s day to today, except that it’s such a shame we are not able to fight it… Because we have weak leaders, that’s the main problem. I think that it’s true we have cultural issues with corruption… But with hindsight, I believe it’s leadership…”
Martin Kpebu
Justifying his stance, Mr Kpebu narrated an incident whereby some callers on a radio station made a statement which he “buys into it”. He revealed that these callers said “the capital of corruption is the Jubilee House”, based on which he insisted that the current report should be “thrown into the dustbin”.
“The capital of corruption is the Jubilee House, that’s where real corruption, you know the millions of dollars, that’s where it happens. That is where all the big people are and that is where they do the biggest deals. So, when you are talking about petty corruption, not to undermine it but it’s just that the Police; the GHC10 here, the GHC20 here, the immigration and the rest is a joke. The millions of dollars are at Jubilee House.”
Martin Kpebu
Addressing corruption in the country
Mr Kpebu revealed that the initiatives by government to combat corruption in the country are simply “lip service” just to divert attention. Citing his reason, he indicated that Mr Boakye Agyarko, the former minister for energy, in his pursuit of the Ameri deal “advised the President to pay $850 million, when somebody thankfully leaked it”.
The lawyer expressed that when the information came in the public domain, the President stated that he was “ill-advised”. He opined that had it not been for the whistle-blower, some $850 million would have been paid.
“To get a big contract, multi-million-dollar contract, it doesn’t work in Ghana. You can’t just sit in your office, go and bid and get a multi-million-dollar contract… You need to lobby [and] sometimes you lobby up to the presidency and I’m saying so on authority.”
Martin Kpebu
The “saving grace” in ridding the country of corruption, Mr Kpebu noted is that, there is a new resolve in the fight against the canker, particularly among the youth.
“I’m sure if we check in the last one month, this topic would have been discussed before. I am optimistic that the way young people are interested in fighting this… So, young people should come together, let’s form more fan clubs, anti-corruption, then let’s begin to give more time to this.”
Martin Kpebu
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