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Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has lamented that politically-engineered recruitments into public sector institutions was frustrating the fight against corruption.

“It is distorting the system that we have to be put in place to help us fight corruption,” Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Richard Quayson, said.

His comments formed part of the second implementation progress report on the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan as Ghana joined the world to mark Anti-Corruption Day Saturday.

With a scramble for scarce jobs in the public sector, political connection is believed to improve the chances of an applicant in securing a job in the public service.

The importance of political connections was accentuated in a statement by Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, George Ayisi Boateng, who had said that when it comes to giving out jobs an “NPP member is my priority, before any other Ghanaian, we are all Ghanaians, but some are more Ghanaians than others.”

But interference by politicians to favour their base in filling vacancies in the public sector creates accountability challenges, experts say.

This is because, heads of government institutions may hesitate in punishing persons with political ‘god-fathers’ found to have engaged in corruption.

CHRAJ was concerned that Ghana’s blueprint for fighting corruption, the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (2012 -2020), could become a paper tiger if political heads do not commit to its implementation.

NACAP contains a set of plans which must be integrated into the programmes and activities of public sector organisation.

One of such plans is the Integrity Award meant to honour citizens who go about their work with integrity. It is a carrot-approach to reward the good even as government applies the stick to punish the corrupt.

Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Richard Quayson, mentioned the institution of the awards as one of the measures it expects the president to adopt in 2018.