Ghana’s past efforts at fighting corruption has been piecemeal – CHRAJ
An anti-corruption crusader has said Ghana’s efforts at fighting corruption have been piecemeal, adhoc, unco-ordinated and difficult to monitor.
Mr Charles Ayamdoo, Director of Anti-Corruption Unit of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), said this at the Third Annual Human Rights Lectures organised in Accra on Monday.
The lectures were jointly organised by CHRAJ and the Commonwealth Human Rights Institute (CHRI) to mark the International Day for Eradication of Poverty and were on the theme: “Advancing Human Rights – Prospects and Challenges.”
Mr Ayamdoo said Ghana’s response to fighting corruption had not been strategic enough and added that weak political will and commitment, low public participation, poor enforcement of rules, weak capacity of civil society and media to address public accountability, politicisation of corruption and weak assets declaration regime were factors militating against a positive outcome.
He expressed the hope that the new National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) would address issues including limited awareness of the linkage between human rights and corruption, weak political will, under-resourced anti-corruption agencies and independent governance institutions.
Mr Ayamdoo said, “The vision of NACAP is to create a sustainable democratic society founded on good governance and imbued with high ethics and integrity. It is to contextualise and mobilise efforts and resources of stakeholders, including government, individuals, civil society, private sector and the media to prevent and fight corruption through the promotion of high ethics and integrity and the vigorous enforcement of applicable laws”.
He said CHRAJ would co-ordinate and monitor the implementation of NACAP, adding the Commission would work in close collaboration with the National Development Planning Commission through a monitoring committee to ensure its success.
Mr Ayamdoo said, “I believe NACAP will sustain the pace of progress on condition that successive governments will maintain political will and strengthen democratic governance and rule of law through free, fair and credible elections”.
He called on the public and stakeholders to support the country’s developmental process, adding that the state needed to make substantial investment in implementing action plans towards combating corruption.
Nana Oye Lithur, a Human Right Activist, lawyer and Executive Director of Human Rights Advocacy Centre, described as worrying some development challenges facing the country.
She cited schools under trees, overcrowded classrooms, cultural practices that marginalised women and children, inadequate water and sanitation facilities, sexual harassment, unemployment and injustices as some of the challnges.
Mr Sam Okudzeto, Chairman of CHRI, described corruption as a menace that had infiltrated every strata of human society.
He called on Ghanaians to insist on their human rights adding that successive governments needed to implement programmes and policies to uphold and raise the bar of human rights higher and erase poverty.
Source: GNA