By Rebecca Ekpe
Anti-Corruption Think Tank Ghana Integrity Initiative, GII, has convened a roundtable to re-think Ghana’s strategies at fighting corruption.
The meeting became critical following reports that the West African nation, which has seen relative peace over the years, did not make gains in its fight to eliminate the canker, corruption.
Corruption Perception Index, CPI Report:
In the 2021 Corruption Perception Index, CPI Report, it was clear that Ghana made no progress in the corruption fight.
Ghana has failed to make progress in the fight against corruption in the year 2021 with its score of 43 in the year 2020 remaining the same for 2021.
According to the 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) by Transparency International, Ghana scored 43 out of a possible clean score of 100 and ranked 73 out of 180 countries or territories included in the 2021 index.
The 2021 CPI said the country’s current performance was still below 50, which was the expected average, thus “left much to be desired”.
The 2021 CPI, the leading global indicator of public sector corruption, focuses on Corruption, Democracy and Human Rights.
A trend analysis of Ghana’s CPI scores over the past decade, from 2012 to 2022, shows the country declined by two points. Ghana’s performance vis-a-vis other Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, with an average of 33, the lowest in the world, saw Ghana ranked below 50 with 44 other countries in the Sub Region.
Assessing the situation:
Ghana’s failure to make progress in the fight against corruption in the year 2021 compelled Conveners of the roundtable, Ghana Anti-Corruption Initiative, GII to Assemble stakeholders in the fight against corruption.
Among the discussants were; the Media, Civil Society Organization, Politicians, Accademia, Technocrats, Government Officials, Youth, Students and Anti-Corruption Sympathizers and Campaigners.
In his presentation on ”Rethinking Ghana’s Anti-Corruption Strategies: A decade’s analysis of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI)”, Dr. Kojo Asante with the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, CDD Ghana identified Ghana’s weak commitment to human rights, unregulated campaign financing concerns, unresolved cases amongst other things as having contributed to the stagnation and deterioration of Ghana’s quest to fight corruption.
”The NLA, Missing Excavator, Galamsey, Central Medical Stories, Missing tricycles, AirBus Scandal, are all unresolved cases”, he said.
Dr. Asante said Ghanaians should not be surprised about the report of stagnation in Ghana’s quest to fight corruption, because, ” we are not solving our problems”.
He stated the drivers of corruption in Ghana as; poverty, greed, unregulated campaign financing regime among a host others.
Clearly, Ghana’s strategies in the fight against corruption seem not to be yielding the desired results.
Deputy Attorney General Responds:
Responding to some of the concerns, Ghana’s Deputy Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah sounded pessimistic about the country’s efforts at combating corruption.
He outlined some of the measures adopted by the government to make corruption unattractive. Among them are the government’s digitalization agenda, ”clearly to eliminate the human interface, which often facilitates corruption”, according to Mr. Tuah-Yeboah.
GII on Why CPI must be sustained:
Mrs. Mary Awelanah Addah, Programmes Manager GII made a brief presentation on Ghana’s CPI performances making a case why the CPI needs to be sustained citing neutrality as one of the reasons; ”the CPI reconciles different viewpoints on the issue of public sector corruption, it is also more neutral when handling different political regimes”
The Corruption Perception Index, CPI covers;
- Bribery,
- Diversion of public funds,
- Use of public office for private gain,
- Nepotism in the civil service,
- State capture,
- The government’s ability to enforce integrity mechanisms, the effective prosecution of corrupt officials,
- Red tape and excessive bureaucratic burden,
- The existence of adequate laws on financial disclosure,
- Conflict of interest prevention and access to information,
- Legal protection for whistleblowers, journalists and investigators.
Views on amending Ghana’s 1992 Constitution:
Panelists on the GII roundtable on rethinking Ghana’s Anti-corruption strategies have agreed that amending Ghana’s 1992 Constitution would be that long term solution to a complete fight against corruption.
Currently as it stands, Ghana’s Constitution has too much power vested in the Executive, with the appointments of Heads of Institutions, the Police amongst other appointments.
The Panelists opined that such appointments do not allow the top hierarchy of these institutions to work independently, which is a setback to promoting good governance, rule of law and free speech, hence a set back to the fight against corruption.
The discussants were; Dr. Eric Oduro Osae, Director General, Internal Audit Agency, Mr. Edem Senanu, Citizen’s Movement Against Corruption, Mrs. Beauty Emefa Narteh, Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, GACC, Mr. Senyo Hosi Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, Dr. Cynthia Tagoe, ISSER.
STAR-Ghana Foundation’s Board Chairperson, Dr. Esther Ofei Aboagye who moderated the session agreed that in spite of the plethora of interventions, Ghana’s CPI has not shown much gains made.
In rethinking the strategies, Madam Ofei-Aboagye acknowledged,” there is a problem, more work needs to be done, so that the millions lost to corruption could be retrieved and ploughed back to propel development for Ghana.
GII’s strategic position and way forward:
Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, GII, Mrs Linda Ofori Kwafo is charting the path and said a ”think Piece” would be put together, as a collection of ideas from the round table.
Another level of engagements with Anti-corrupt stakeholders would take place.
All with the aim of keeping the issues of Anti-corruption on the front burner in the national discourse.
”Research shows that Ghana loses more than $1 billion through Illicit financial flows including transfer pricing, undervaluing of imports and overvaluing of exports, among others. If Ghana could stop all this waste, it would not have been necessary to have gone to the IMF for a $955.2 million bail-out and even be discussing E- levy. The billions lost every year through misappropriation and theft documented in the report of the Auditor-General is mind-blowing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is common knowledge that Corruption holds back economic growth, increases the cost of doing business, reduces revenue to the State, leads to capital flight, and inflates the cost of running a government. It also results in a loss of legitimacy, trust in, and respect for, legally constituted authorities. Interestingly, all governments have come to power on the back of anti-corruption yet corruption is the major fundamental developmental challenge Ghana faces. The impunity associated with corruption, starts with strong pronouncements to criticize governments in power on political parties campaign platforms, to the never thorough, never to be implemented, dead on arrival anti-corruption programmes and promises in political parties manifestos and to the poor performance on CPI, Afrobarometer and other survey,”, according to GII’s Executive Director, Mrs Kwafo.
Recommendations to promote Anti-corruption:
- Fix the democracy
- Approaches to curtailing corruption must be sustainable
- Neutralize power of the Executive
- Deal with unregulated campaign financing.
- Tighten Controls with Public Service, record keeping etc.
- Transparency in assets declaration
- Accelerate passage of Public Officers’ Bill in Parliament
According to Dr. Kojo Asante with CDD Ghana, Corruption poses an existential threat to Ghana and there is the need to sustain the conversations that seek to promote anti-corruption tendencies in Ghana.
