allAfrica.com: Ghana: Fight Against Corruption is a Collective Responsibility (Page 1 of 1)

THE NATIONAL Coordinator of the Coalition of Good Governance, Mrs. Leonora Kyeremanteng has called for a holistic attitudinal change among Ghanaians as a measure in preventing corruption from the system.

According to her, the prevention of corruption, to a large extent, will maintain the core value of good governance espoused in the country and thereby entrench it into the system.

She therefore entreated all persons in the country to contribute in eradicating the cancer from the system and adopt positive attitudes to work devoid of any under-hand dealings.

Mrs Kyeremanteng was speaking at a seminar on Prevention of Corruption for Good Governance in Accra, organized by the Office of Accountability, in collaboration with the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA).

Participants were drawn from both public and private organizations including the Center for Democratic Development (CDD), Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Police Service, Immigration Service, Internal Revenue Service, Custom, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), Trade Unions Congress (TUC), Judicial Service among others.

The seminar that had expert panel of speakers was meant to impart skills and knowledge of corruption eradication into participants in attaining a corruption-free-country for good governance since corruption is said to be rife in both public and private institutions, a concern that should be dealt with passionately.

Mrs. Kyeremanteng, who chaired the occasion, further noted that her outfit in conjunction with other stakeholders are working on the best internationally practiced modalities on how to empower government agencies through funding to enable them perform satisfactorily.

It was her view that in combating corruption from the system, emphasis should be put on the criminalization of corruption and its prosecution adding that the strategy to combat crime must be adequately sustained with the ability to demand for accountability in the system.

A Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mr. Richard Quayeson noted that despite numerous methodologies adopted in the past in eradicating corruption, the cancer stands tall in every facet of the economy.

According to him, CHRAJ has identified preventive and education among other methodologies that would help fight the war against corruption, noting that prosecution was not the best indicator for the eradication of corruption.

The Deputy Commissioner was of the view that regulatory bodies should be improved and strengthened to enhance public accountability stressing that people should be educated on the guidelines of the laws and codes of conduct.

On the part of Prof. Kwami Karikari, the Executive Director of Media Foundation for West Africa, who represented the GJA, corruption engendered international business moguls are more serious than those petty ones said to be going on in the police service.

According to him even though the media had the best avenues among others in fighting corruption, the absence of democratic information laws, arbitrary censorship of the media as well as the lack of information on corrupt activities limited their work.

Other technical weaknesses on the part of the media in exposing and investigating corruption, he noted, was the lack of facilities to conduct investigations on corruption well enough, political biases of the media, making nonsense of issues raised on corruption, fear of loosing advertising as well as dangers faced by journalists when they try to investigate corrupt activities.

Prof. Karikari further noted that the establishment of a media by politicians is a major concern as it is a threat to eradicating corruption from the system.

To him, media owned by a politician or politically affiliated media would not expose corruption when it comes from their political party.

Elucidating measures to help solve the situation, Prof. Karikari noted among others that government should be pressured for the right to democratic information law, bureaucratic systems should be removed to enable public officials give information and journalists should be protected from criminal reprisals by immediately prosecuting perpetrators.

In his presentation, Prof. Ken Attafuah, Executive Director of the Justice for Human Rights Institute, noted that there are multiple anti-corruption agencies in the country; CHRAJ, Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Narcotic Control Board (NACOB), Serious Fraud Office (SFO), who have overlapping mandate in critical areas such as investigations, prevention, reporting and taking appropriate action.

According to him, there is confusion in the publics' minds as to the specific roles played by each of the agencies emphasizing that there would be wastage and dissipation of resources as these agencies would be working on the same act of corruption.

The overlapping duties of the agencies, to him, may result in a diminished institutional responsibility where each agency would be expecting the other to do a job required thereby ending up with no work performed from either of the agencies.

Prof. Attafuah asserted that the anti-corruption agencies could co-operate in their work through an inter-agency committee, where notes of the various agencies could be compared, share information, ideas and concerns as well as co-ordinate and undertake investigations in appropriate cases.

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