The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), is collaborating with the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), Ghana, in the implementation process of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).
The IIA, which defines internal auditing as an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve on organisation’s operations, essentially offers a systematic and disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance process consistent to an organisation.
Mr Richard Quayson, the Acting Commissioner of CHRAJ told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the collaboration would ensure that Internal Audit Agencies adequately evaluate the system of internal controls and recommend improvement.
It would also ensure that assess compliance with policies and procedures and sound business practices, assess compliance with state laws and contractual obligations, review operations and programmes to ascertain whether results are consistent with established objectives.
He said the IIA would also assess whether operations and programmes were being carried out as planned, as well as detect and investigate occurrences of fraud, embezzlement, theft, and waste among others.
Mr Quayson, said although the primary responsibility of internal audit was not to investigate fraud, the IIA’s training for its members in risk evaluation places internal auditors at the very heart of the NACAP implementation, especially the Public Sector Integrity Programme.
The Acting CHRAJ Commissioner said the fight against corruption through helping public officers not to corrupt themselves, making it difficult for public officers to be corrupt as well as deterring public officers from engaging in corrupt practices.
Delivering a paper on the topic: “The National Anti-Corruption Action Plan: The Role of Public and Private Sector Institutions,” at a meeting with members of the Institute, Mr Quayson indicated that corruption remained a major challenge for all societies despite the many efforts to minimise or curtail it.
“No society has been successful in fighting corruption using deterrence (investigations and sanctions) alone, and that successful nations have often adopted the three-pronged approach, which are education or capacity building, prevention and deterrence,” he said.
Mr Quayson noted that the Directive Principles of State Policy which states that the State shall take all necessary steps to eradicate corrupt practices and the abuse of power.
He said it was in this light that NACAP has been developed pursuant to Article 35 (8) to achieve the above purpose.
The Acting Commissioner was emphatic that NACAP is Ghana’s strategic response and national blueprint for fighting corruption in Ghana for more than a 10-year period, and also adopts a transformational and Human Rights Based Approach to fighting corruption.
Mr Quayson welcomed the collaboration in the hope that it would go a long way to complement the efforts of other stakeholders to fight corruption in Ghana.
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