Mary Awelana Addah
THE GHANA Integrity Initiative (GII) has applauded the important role of the media in promoting business integrity, good governance and the fight against corruption in the country.
Investigative journalists through the media, GII said, had played a crucial role in bringing allegations of corruption to public scrutiny and fighting against impunity.
Mary Awelana Addah, the Programmes Manager, GII, was speaking on behalf of Mrs. Linda Ofori-Kwafo, the Executive Director of GII at a capacity-building workshop orgainsed for media practitioners in Kumasi recently.
She lauded the critical role of the media in ensuring that the people of Ghana were informed, empowered and utilising the knowledge gained to promote social justice.
The capacity-building and training workshop for media on business integrity reporting formed part of GII’s ongoing Multi-Stakeholder Business Integrity Forum (MSBIF) project, with funding support from the embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands.
It sought to create a platform for private sector businesses, selected media and public sector to dialogue and find solutions to pertinent challenges confronting them relating to the ease of doing business in Ghana.
Mrs. Addah said the GII, in the past 20 years, had been implementing various activities with the view to promoting the fight against corruption.
Notably amongst those activities are improving citizens’ awareness on the impact of corruption on their daily lives, strengthening anti-corruption institutions and systems, advocating for improved women’s land rights and promoting private sector business integrity.
The GII programmes manager observed that integrity in business was an indispensable element for sustainable, long-term, business growth and success, adding, “Business integrity has a very critical role to play in today’s hyper-connected world economy.”
She described inflated prices on public and private contracts and ultimately consumer goods, thereby reducing wealth and prosperity, breach of health, safety and environmental laws leading to environmental damage as some of the negative impacts of business corruption.
Others, she said, included human rights abuses, tax avoidance and illicit financial flows through establishing subsidiaries in tax havens, and laundering the proceeds of illicit activities through opaque corporate ownership structures, which eventually undermined investment in and access to critical services such as health care and education.
She pointed out that tax-dodging corporations cost states hundreds of billions of dollars every year, while overpriced public contracts further drained state treasuries of vital funds.
The media, she stated, did not only raise public awareness about the impacts of corruption, but also investigated and reported incidences of corruption.
The training, she noted, would enhance capacities in financial, business investigations, business integrity reporting and help keep the anti-corruption agenda at the forefront of the media discourse.
“GII believes that with the watchdog role of the media, especially in their capacity to monitor and investigate issues, when harnessed in a sustained manner towards promoting business integrity, the fight against corruption will achieve a lot,” she stated.
FROM David Afum, Kumasi