Director of Commission on Human Right and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Daniel Carlos Mensah, has called on Ghanaians to be committed in fighting corruption in the country.
According to him, the fight against corruption can only be won when it is fought from its base. He therefore encouraged all especially public officials to work hard and stop taking advantage of the least opportunity offered them to make money off others.
He made this known during the launch of research conducted by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Penplusbytes on corruption, titled METOGU Anti-Corruption Report in the Volta Regional capital, Ho on Friday, July 13, 2018.
The Report indicated that 7 out of 10 Ghanaians sampled perceive corruption to be on the ascendancy with majority of the respondents holding the view that government is gradually losing the fight against corruption in the country.
The METOGU Report revealed that over 95 per cent of the 792 respondents agreed that corruption is high in Ghana and is highly prevalent in the public sector where majority of the citizenry have had to pay facilitation or illegal fees to access services while 69 per cent believed that government’s effort in fighting corruption is either unsatisfactory or average.
Penplusbytes employed both survey and focus group discussion (FGD) methodologies to collect data from four regions namely: Greater Accra, Western, Ashanti and Volta regions with the 792 respondents drawn from a wider spectrum of the Ghanaian population.
The research focused on seven thematic areas of anti-corruption consisting; general corruption issues, the creation of the office of the special prosecutor, and the passage of the right to information bill.
Others are; reforms of the public-sector procurement act and value for money, beneficial ownership title, the passage of the public officers’ code of conduct bill and the assets declaration regime, and the national health insurance scheme and school feeding programme.
Executive Director, Penplusbites, Kwami Ahiabenu II disclosed that the Organisation with support from the UK-aid funded “Strengthening Action Against Corruption” (STAAC) programme had embarked on a two-year METOGU Project aimed at giving citizens the opportunity to support the fight against corruption.
He said METOGU, a Guan phrase meaning “Keeping the pressure on” is a project to raise awareness on the current government’s promises on anti-corruption and provide a platform that encourages citizens to hold both elected and public officials accountable to deliver towards a zero-corruption environment in Ghana.
Kwami Ahiabenu II said the Report would be used to engage appropriate institutions on anti-corruption to enhance their work thus, “serve as a basis for dialogue between ordinary citizens and the Executive,” to ensure the fight is won against corruption.
A Lecturer at EP University College, Harrison Kofi Belley observed that successive governments intentionally refused to resource public anti-corruption institutions so that society is uninformed for them to continue perpetrating their corrupt acts.
He charged the media to continue with their anti-corruption campaign focusing their lenses on political parties.
By: Collins Anku/voltaonlineg.com