Anti-corruption stakeholders say Ghana can only win the corruption battle when it conscientises its children, from an early age, to know, understand and shun corruption, while it puts in measures to remove opportunities that facilitate the canker.
This was the consensus at a multi-stakeholder Business Integrity Breakfast Meeting, organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) in collaboration with the Private Enterprises Federation (PEF) in Accra, on Wednesday.
The issue of corruption, they said, was a problem of individuals’ integrity and moral compass, thus the need to teach children to understand what corruption was and the harm it could cause so they could grow into adults with integrity.
Nana Osei Bonsu, the Chief Executive Officer of PEF, said that “firstly, corruption should be defined simply as what it was: Stealing!”
This was because the current connotation of corruption was difficult for ordinary people to understand and relate to.
“The ordinary citizen feels that they are not part of the fight because corruption is too big for them but if you talk about stealing, then yes…” he said.
The fight, he emphasised, should now be concentrated on prevention by focusing on children, who were now forming their habits and behaviours since most adults had already formed their habits and because of greed and lack of integrity they tended to succumb to n demands that served their self-interest.
Professor John B.K Aheto, an Entrepreneur and Lecturer at the University of Ghana, who chaired the meeting, also agreed on the need to start teaching children, from the pre-school level, to imbibe the principles of integrity than focusing on adults.
He noted that it would not be useful to target the youth at the university level as they were already adults with formed attitudes, adding that it was important to work on individuals’ attitudes and behaviours that engendered corruption and not just pass laws.
“It is not a question of laws, it’s a question of the individual, the background, how he was brought up, who he is.
…Let’s deal with ourselves as individuals, let’s deal with our conscience, let’s deal with who we are, let’s deal with our upbringing and let every parent in this room pass on the word; it is from the youth that we can develop this idea of the incorruptible individual,” he stated.
Mr. Kwesi K. Amoah, Executive Director of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), who gave the keynote speech on ‘United Against Corruption for Development, Peace and Security: The role of the Private Sector”, emphasised that corruption was dishonest and an illegal behaviour on the part of individuals. Thus to address it, he said, individuals must have good character and high moral attitude.
Mrs. Linda Ofori-Kwafo, Executive Director of the GII, supported the call of PEF for a review in Ghana’s definition of corruption under the Criminal Offenses Act, saying the stakeholders had been calling for this for some years.
She said, in line with this, a Committee was formed under former Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong.
“The media can help us find out the extent to which the good work that Committee did had gotten to and what efforts were ongoing on under the current AG for us to bring that work to a close,” she stated.
