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Liberia: Uprightness - Key to Anti-Corruption
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The NEWS (Monrovia)
EDITORIAL
10 March 2008
Posted to the web 10 March 2008
Monrovia
As corruption remains public number one enemy, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has reiterated her observation that corruption has permeated the fabric of the Liberian society thereby posing a number of daunting challenges to the Nation.
Johnson-Sirleaf indicated that critical sectors of the Liberian society such as the churches, media, the central government and the civil society as well as other domestic places were all corrupt and has therefore called for collaborative efforts to combat this social menace.
The Liberian leader made these observations on Friday when she launched the Corporate Governance & Forensic Solutions, Inc. (CGFS). The CGFS is intended to assist with fraud prevention, detection and deterrence and will provide services of white-collar crime investigations, forensic accounting and investigations, among others.
In line with the CGFS' objectives, Johnson-Sirleaf outlined the effect of corruption and said it weakens the ability of society to ensure checks and balances. She indicated that corruption also has widespread economic and social effects and depletes public wealth thereby hindering the development of fair markets and destroying competition. Moreover she said corruption generates frustration, weakens civil society, noting "accountable leadership cannot govern in a corrupt climate."
In view of these effects, we cannot totally agree more with the Liberian leader in calling for a multiple approach in the fight against corruption, with accountability and transparency being the key factors.
We do believe that fundamentally, accountability and transparency could be effected and sustained when every segment of the Liberian society endeavors not to short-circuit the system in favor a few privileged individuals, but to allow the system work fully for all.
Corruption within the Liberian context has been hatched and nurtured because individuals, due to their connections, be it family or otherwise, feel or are treated with exceptions to the rules and regulations.
Corruption has also been hatched and nurtured due the patronage mentality which has become pervasive in the Liberian society to the extent that people are accustomed to expecting to get what they did not work for, thereby undermining earnings through hard work.
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To overcome many of these causes that lead to corruption, Liberians would have to exercise honesty, sincerity and uprightness in complying with the prescribed systems of governance within their respective segments of the society.
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