POINT OF ORDER
BY
KWAME GYASI
E-mail: makgyasi@ug.edu.gh
On Tuesday, June 28, the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) held its first National Anti-Corruption Forum under the theme: ““Consolidating Ghana’s Anti-Corruption Efforts: Building Consensus to Address Existing Gaps”. The welcome address was delivered by the Board Chair of GII, Mr. Kwame Gyasi. Reproduced below is his address:
Mr, Chairman, noble soldiers and veterans in the fight against corruption, distinguished invited guests, honourable men and women of the media, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my colleague Board Members of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), it is my greatest pleasure to welcome you to another of Ghana Integrity Initiative’s programmes aimed at promoting transparency, accountability and good governance and in the fight against corruption. Today’s programme which is funded by DANIDA is the first Ghana Integrity Initiative Anti-Corruption Forum.
Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) is the Ghana chapter of Transparency International (TI). Transparency International is the global non-governmental organisation focused on the fight against corruption. The vision of Transparency International is a world in which government, politics, business and the daily life of people are free from corruption. Transparency and accountability are among some of the core values of TI. In tune with the vision and core values of TI, Ghana Integrity Initiative’s vision is to make Ghana a corruption-free country in all spheres of human endeavour where people and institutions act with integrity, accountability and transparency. GII intends to achieve this by continuously creating awareness about the negative effects of corruption and to empower citizens to demand responsiveness and transparency from both public and private institutions.
On Friday, June 10, 2016, the Greatest, Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion, the man who is regarded as the greatest sports personality of all times and a great philosopher in his own right died at the age of 74. Muhammad Ali is well known for his gift of poetry and oratory. He has been quoted by many personalities several times at different occasions. I therefore consider it appropriate if I should also use this occasion granted me to quote him.
Before he fought Jerry Quarry, a white boxer and the first boxer he met when his boxing licence was restored, Muhammad Ali had this to say: “Nobody has to tell me that this is a serious business. I’m not fighting one man. I’m fighting a lot of men, showing a lot of them, here is one man they couldn’t defeat, couldn’t conquer. My mission is to bring freedom to 30 million black people.”
Nobody has to tell us that fighting corruption is a serious business. We are fighting criminals with well-vested interests, criminals driven by greed who take food from the mouths of the poor and the underprivileged in society to satisfy their filthy glutinous lifestyle. These criminals will use every means available, fraudulent and illegal, including warp intellectually illiterate arguments, vile propaganda and profane insults to fight back in order to thwart our efforts to bring development and growth to this nation of impoverished citizens.
Again Muhammad Ali said this: “A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”.
After almost 60 years of independence and nationhood and at some time in the history of this country some citizens were lined up and executed for allegedly misusing their positions to obtain bank loans while recently some judges have been dismissed for accepting goats and yams as gifts, acts deemed to constitute bribery and corruption and which constitute conflict of interest considering the positions they occupied. Today, in this jungle we call home, as if history means nothing to us, the people of this country are wasting time arguing whether a US$100,000 Ford Expedition car given as a gift to a sitting President by a foreign contractor friend who had been awarded juicy state contracts should be classified as bribery and corruption and therefore constitutes conflict of interest for the appropriate punishment to be mated out. In many countries, this would have caused the eruption of the political volcano sweeping many people away. But in this jungle, the characters involved are daring the citizens to a duel of fist to settle the issue
Have we as nation wasted not just 30 years of our life but 60 years of our entire nationhood? The time has come for all office holders in this country without exception, desirous of any modicum of decency, to carefully read the resignation speech of David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, after he lost the BREXIT referendum for lessons in governance, accountability, integrity, transparency and statesmanship.
Let me quote the words of Muhammad Ali once again. These are his words before he fought and won the world heavyweight champion from Sonny Liston. He said: “I’ll hit Liston with so many punches from so many angles he’ll think he’s surrounded.”
The fight against corruption is a very serious and dangerous one against highly-placed powerful persons, many of them in positions of public trust with unbridled ambitious vested interests. These dangerous criminals in society will surely fight back with venom and vengeance to protect their vested interests.
The only way we can win the fight is to surround these criminals and hit them with so many arsenals from different angles to create impression in their minds that they are being attacked by a battalion of soldiers. We have to be united in this crusade, in this jihad.
Before I take my seat, I wish to recite Transparency International’s Declaration against Corruption for your attention which reads as follows:
“I will not pay bribe,
I will not seek bribe
I will work with others to campaign against corruption
I will speak out against corruption and report on abuse
I will only support candidates for public office who say no to corruption and demonstrate transparency, integrity and accountability”
But before I take my seat, I wish to make reference to another of Muhammad Ali’s quotations: “All I did was to stand up for what I believed”. How many of our leaders can sincerely repeat these words. I pause for an answer. Thank you for your attention.