Unenviable Corruption Ranking

Ghana�s unenviable ranking in the compendium of corrupt nations is an anomaly that has gone past the point of crisis. As an all-pervading cankerworm infecting all sectors of our national life, including the media, judiciary, police, education et al, it calls for an all-hands-on-deck approach devoid of partisanship even if novices seek to give it political coloration. The President, who should have been leading the anti-corruption charge, is handicapped. Given his moral shortcomings, he would end up administering a nostrum on the ailment, too weak to deal the deadly blow required under the circumstances. That is why so far his attempts have been feeble references about his commitment to addressing the cankerworm, a lip-service of sorts, when he has to address public forums. A government, which after paying huge sums of money to its cronies for no work done, turns around to declare the payment as illegal and criminal, must be sick and close to becoming a failed political entity. The reasons are not farfetched; top guns have benefitted from the gravy and therefore forfeited the moral power to retrieve the monies. The many allegations of corruption against government appointees have so far not been responded to convincingly. They have at best been veneered with time-wasting commissions of enquiry and EOCO investigations which would only conclude when the tenure of the government runs out. Call them time-buying manouvres spawned on an agitated people and you would have hit the nail right on the head. If there is anything like an intensive care treatment for an ailing country, this is what Ghana needs today. President John Mahama once told Ghanaians that the country was sick and confined to the intensive care unit under his care. The diagnosis, as it were, of Ghana�s ailment today has come at a time when government is groping in the dark, trying various modules as responses to the seemingly intractable corruption-spawned challenges bedeviling the country. There are too many corruption cases in point that asking for test cases so government can prove its mettle in fighting the aberration is out of the question. The latest cases of graft to visit the country this year did not form part of the data informing the corruption ranking instructively. Had the GYEEDA affair, the guinea fowl and the tree planting ventures inter alia been captured, we could have outdone the first two countries on the corruption table and perhaps attracted a Vulture Award. Sadly and disappointingly, the government propaganda machinery has been activated to pour cold water on the ranking albeit abortively. The country is close to the precipice and those who deny this must be deficient in their analysis of social situations occasioned by bad governance and corruption.