Anti-corruption bodies urged to be abreast with corruption laws

Mrs Florence Dennis, Executive Secretary of the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) has urged institutions in the fight against corruption to acquaint themselves with laws on the subject to make their campaigns and advocacy programmes more effective.

Speaking at the a training programme for Community Based Organisations (CBO’s) and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the Western Region at Takoradi on Thursday, she noted that the laws on corruption were many and scattered in several acts making it difficult to access them.

Mrs Dennis stressed that slogans on corruption had no effect on the fight against corruption unless a concerted effort was made to tackle and uproot it from the society.

“Corruption is a major societal challenge that must be overcome through a strong political will, to make the various interventions at poverty reduction and other social actions feasible”.

She said corruption could destroy the capacity of institutions in the performance of their duty, suspend the rule of law, destroy a country’s democracy and undermine democracy in general.

Mrs Dennis suggested that to make the fight against corruption effective, there was the need to intensify education on the Freedom of Information Bill, code of conduct of public officials and politicians, professionalism, integrity and the declaration of assets by public office holders.

Participants at the training noted that the poor publicity about new laws made it extremely impossible for most Ghanaians to be updated.

They, therefore, suggested that such new laws should be made available to the public and the various district assemblies.

Source: GNA