New data obtained by Ghanamatters.com suggests that for 2019 and 2020, corruption has actually increased substantially causing Ghana close to $4 billion dollars.
Most Ghanaians believe President Akufo Addo is more corrupt than any president ever elected in Ghana. A survey conducted by GHM Network, also indicates that President Akufo Addo and the New Patriotic Party can’t reduce or prosecute any member of their party on corruption.
Ghana’s anti-graft body, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), which is Transparency International’s Local Chapter, last year warned that the country “loses close to US$3 billion to corruption annually,” GhanaWeb news portal reported on Wednesday.
The outlet cited GII Executive Director Linda Ofori-Kwafo, who stressed that successive governments have attempted to minimise corruption through “moral crusades to uphold high ethics, the confiscation of properties found to have been acquired through corruption or public reforms,” but that there is still a long way ahead to fight the problem.
A recent corruption scandal serves as an example for acts that leave “citizens in poverty, joblessness, in their broken homes and with shattered dreams,” said a statement, issued by the The National House of Chiefs, the highest body in Ghana that unites all traditional rulers, chiefs and kings.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was criticised for giving away the country’s strategic company – the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to a group of friends, politicians and businessmen allegedly linked to his administration.
Member of Parliament Alhaji Inusah Fuseini described the case as a “disappointment and failure towards the fight against corruption.”
Despite being one of the few West African countries endowed with many natural resources corruption in Ghana causing enormous strain on human development. Ghana is annually losing billions to graft – a menace that keeps people poor and shatters their dreams.
Ghanaians will go to the polls on December 7, 2020 to elect new legislatures and president. The current administration is fighting hard to defend their abysmal performance on corruption, although they made it a flagship policy in the 2016 general elections.
The citizens are asking why has the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) not been effective at punishing crimes committed against the state in the area of corruption? The OSP is yet to prosecute anyone on corruption charges.
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Source: GHM Network
