Participants at a day’s conference on corruption say Ghana has suffered drawback to its development over the last six decades, due to corruption, noting that it reduces the capacity of the state to deliver basic services for the citizens of the country.
The over 200 participants; drawn from Parliament, ministries and civil society organizations among others, added that corruption creates high social inequality among the citizenry and threatens social cohesion and political stability.
A communiqué issued at the end of the one day conference organized by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and signed by its Executive Director, Mrs. Jean Mensa, noted that in spite of efforts made by governments over the years, the canker is still on the rise.
According to the communiqué, reports from Transparency International show that corruption is still highly prevalent in Ghana, stressing that; “even though the perception of corruption among state institutions is high, government response to fighting corruption has been less than adequate.”
Reports indicting government officials for corruption are shelved and culpable individuals are either promoted or transferred to the office of the presidency, thereby undermining the dignity of the seat of government, it stated.
Institutional challenges The conference noted that key institutions which have been mandated by the constitution to prevent and fight corruption have been unable to effectively deliver on their mandate.
These institutions include: Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ); Economic and Organised Crime (EOCO), the Attorney-General’s office; Ghana Audit Service and Parliament.
The communiqué observed that though CHRAJ is charged with the mandate of protecting human rights, playing the role of an ombudsman in curbing administrative justice and fighting corruption, it has been hampered by many challenges.
It lamented that: “CHRAJ lacks powers of prosecution, arrest, search and seizure. Therefore, the Commission’s investigations, findings and decision are not binding. The Commission further lacks financial autonomy and does not always have the resources needed to effectively execute its anti-corruption agenda”.
For strengthening CHRAJ, the communiqué recommended that the commission must be given financial autonomy so that it could have adequate resources to undertake its mandate of fighting corruption. The IEA and its participants also called for the setting up of a new anti-corruption with the mandate of fighting corruption, as is done in other countries.
The mandate of the anti-corruption agency should reflect the three-pronged approach adopted in the country’s National Anti -Corruption Action Plan (NACAP), namely education, prevention , and effective investigation and prosecution. Staff of the current anti-corruption department of CHRAJ could form the nucleus of this new agency, they suggested.
On EOCO, they argued that it lacks independence. This is because it is subsumed under the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General’s Department, whose heads are directly appointed by the President. Furthermore, EOCO lacks adequate professional and specialized staff to investigate and prosecute complex economic and organized crimes, the participants added.
Touching on the Attorney General’s Department, they said: “The AG is constrained by the fusion of the Attorney General’s office with that of the Minister of Justice. This places the AG in a conflict of interest position when prosecuting public officials of a sitting government”.
For strengthening Attorney General’s Department, participants recommended: “Government must decouple the office of the Attorney General from that of the Minister of Justice to create the environment for independent prosecution of cases involving executive indiscretion.
Furthermore, several challenges constraint the Audit Service in its fight against corruption. These, they mentioned, include lack of authority to enforce audit finding recommendations; absence of qualified accounts officers and internal auditors in the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), leading to delay and inaccuracies in the work of the Auditor-General.
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