President Akufo-Addo
SEVEN CIVIL Society Organizations (CSOs) and two media houses have jointly petitioned President Akufo-Addo, the Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Ocquaye and the Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, over what they termed “creeping normalization” of corruption in Ghana.
The CSOs and media houses are the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Africa Centre for International Law and Accountability (ACILA), Penplusbytes, Alliance for Women in Media, One Ghana Movement, Joy FM and Adom FM.
The petition issued on December 8, 2018, on the occasion of this year’s anti-corruption day celebration, stated “we wish to raise concerns about the ‘creeping normalization’ of corruption among the populace and the threat it poses to our development aspirations to move Ghana Beyond Aid to an economically independent, confident, peaceful and prosperous nation.”
This year’s International Anti-Corruption Day commemoration was under the theme: “United Against Corruption for Development, Peace and Security” and according to the petitioners “it is timely and appropriate to reflect on the state of corruption in Ghana and the need to radically rethink and intensify our efforts to deal corruption a fatal blow. “
The international anti-corruption campaign focuses on corruption as an impediment to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly how corruption affects education, health, justice, democracy, prosperity and development.
According to the petitioners, “the current state of our anti-corruption fight in Ghana is a story about stagnation.”
They observed in the petition that “to put the state of our anti-corruption fight in perspective, we can generally say that we have stagnated in our fight against corruption for the last 10 years, at least in terms of outcomes. Several indices support this perspective.”
“As primary custodians of our development aspirations codified in the 1992 Constitution, The Transparency International (TI) 2017 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) shows that between 2008 and 2017, Ghana has never attained a score of 50, which will represent at least a pass mark.”
The petition observed that “worse still our records over the 10 years demonstrate a failure to sustain gains made in certain years.”
“The success rate of the EOCO raises many questions but what is more worrying is what happened to the 432 cases investigated. Often, one would hear agencies like the EOCO, Criminal Investigations Division of the Ghana Police Service or the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) saying they have submitted dockets to the Attorney General’s Office waiting for action.”
“The failure to provide such crucial updates is dissuading a lot of Ghanaians to assume that corruption offenders can get punished. At the same time, it is sending wrong signals to offenders who are not deterred, in the light of any obvious danger, to engage in corruption.
“The failure of public anti-corruption agencies to submit themselves to the full cause of accountability and transparency is therefore undermining the fight against corruption. Another important example is the Auditor General’s 2016 Liabilities of Ministries, Department and Agencies report of 2017.”
BY Melvin Tarlue