Ghana has consistently fallen below 50 points on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) table despite the relentless advocacy of anti-corruption bodies.

Mrs. Beauty Emefa Narteh, Executive Secretary, Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), who said anti-corruption stakeholders were concerned about the apparent stagnation of the fight against corruption.

Mrs. Narteh made the observation in an engagement with the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office as part of a project dubbed ‘Is the fight against Corruption in the fourth republic a mirage or reality?

She stressed that this year’s African Union Anti-Corruption Day centred on sensitising and training the youth to increase their knowledge on corruption and their role against corruption.

She said that as part of the effort to upscale the fight, the GACC also seeks to harness public advocacy towards the International Anti-Corruption Day slated for December 9th.

The event seeks to raise awareness of corruption and the role of the Convention in combating and
preventing it. The Convention entered into force in December 2005.

She explained that the GACC, in collaboration with its Local Accountability Networks (LANets) and with funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, commemorated 2023 African Anti-Corruption Day in 31 districts across 14 regions in Ghana.

She shared a perspective on the GACC project dubbed ‘Building Evidence for Increased Accountability in Ghana through a Multi-Stakeholder Accountability Initiative.’

She said until all stakeholders commited holistically to the fight against corruption, all efforts would amount to only scratching the surface of corruption instead of winning the fight against it.

The CPI data clearly indicate that the corruption fight in Ghana is not advancing.

‘I am embarrassed to say that currently we have normalised corruption in a way. If you look at the CPI, we have not done well. If we were students, we would have been seen as average students,’ she stated.

She urged the youth to rise against the men
ace, as they would be the future bearers of the current corruption that had been piled up, stressing that the youth needed to be active citizens.

She also called for proactive leadership and commitment in the fight against corruption, stressing that the move needed to be backed by resources and prosecution to clearly make the fight feasible.

The Executive Secretary of GACC said that although people claimed the CPI was not actual, the results of other surveys and research still portrayed that the country was slacking back in its efforts.

She lamented that the selfish attitude of some Ghanaians would not help in the journey of fighting corruption in the country because corruption happened because citizens were also happy when they were beneficiaries of the corruption act.

‘So, when I benefit from it, it’s not corruption, but if she benefits from it, it’s corruption,’ she said.

Mrs. Narteh mentioned that prosecution had always been a major challenge in the country because there had been reports of corruptio
n, but jailing offenders is rare.

Source: Ghana News Agency