Ghana fails to make progress in Corruption Perception Index 2017

The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of 2017 shows a depressing picture of majority of countries making little or no progress in the fight against corruption; Ghana is one of the countries that have failed to move up the Index. Despite making a score of 43, the country ranks 81 among 180 countries and territories in the Index released Wednesday February 21, 2018.

In the 2016 Index, Ghana, with a score of 40 was ranked 70 among 176 countries.

According to Transparency International (TI) the global anti-corruption group that released the Index, this year’s shows that majority of the 180 countries covered in the Index have made little or no progress in ending corruption.

“While further analysis shows journalists and activists in corrupt countries risking their lives every day in an effort to speak out,” it adds.

The 180 countries and territories in the Index are ranked by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople, using a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

“This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries scored below 50, with an average score of 43. Unfortunately, compared to recent years, this poor performance is nothing new,” TI says.

According to the TI, however, over the last six years, some countries significantly improved their CPI score, including Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and the United Kingdom, while other countries declined, including Syria, Yemen and Australia.

New Zealand and Denmark rank highest with scores of 89 and 88 respectively, while Syria, South Sudan and Somalia rank lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9 respectively in the 2017 Index.

“The best performing region is Western Europe with an average score of 66. The worst performing regions are sub-Saharan Africa (average score 32) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (average score 34),” TI says.

Further analysis of the results, TI says indicates that countries with the least protection for press and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also tend to have the worst rates of corruption.

“Every week at least one journalist is killed in a country that is highly corrupt. 

The analysis, which incorporates data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, shows that in the last six years, more than nine out of 10 journalists were killed in countries that score 45 or less on the Index,” it adds.

Ghana’s anti-corruption efforts

In spite of public outcry and concern over public corruption, there has been very limited state action to curb the phenomena and that is notwithstanding the fact that the country has adequate laws and institutions to tackle the malaise.

The exact financial loss to the country through corruption is not known, but it does cost the country several billions of cedis every year. The cost is felt more in some instances such as low quality of education facilities and education itself, the health system, poor quality of roads and drainage systems and the overall weakening and compromising of the structures of state.

Recently the Auditor-General disallowed payments that were found to be unjustified. The amount saved the country totaled GH¢5.4 billion, which is the equivalent of over $1 billion.

The country has laws and institutions in place to fight corruption, but the practice has become a low risk venture, because there is politicization of wrongdoing of any kind including corruption.

The Executive, Judiciary and Legislature are all suspected to be corrupt.

The Executive is known and in some cases found to have acted to rob the state of money through deals handed down to its cronies and benefactors. Judges have been found to have taken tokens as bribes to twist justice and in some cases release persons accused of murder standing trial before them.

Corruption among Parliamentarians is widely suspected. Some members of Parliament have in the past openly admitted to members of the august house taking bribes to pass legislation.

The Special Prosecutor

In its efforts to fight corruption, the Ghana government appointed a Special Prosecutor. The move was widely applauded by citizens and anti-corruption groups. The Special Prosecutor, a former Attorney-General has been vetted and approved by Parliament.

AU fights corruption as Africa loses $148 billion every year

The African Union (AU) in 2012 did a study which found that Africa loses $148 billion to corruption every year. The resource-rich country also loses an estimated $60 billion every year to illicit financial flows.

The AU at its 30th session of the African Union Summit chose the fight against corruption as its focus with the theme “Winning the fight against corruption: A sustainable path to Africa’s transformation”.

It is yet to be seen if most of Africa’s political players, very well known to be the pivots around which corruption evolves will walk the talk and tackle the debilitating phenomena that has continued to ravage a rich continent, leaving in its trail avoidable casualties among its long-suffering citizens.

TI says despite being the worst performing region as a whole, Africa has a number of countries that are consistently fighting against corruption, and making some progress.

“In fact, some African countries score better than some countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Specifically, Botswana, Seychelles, Cabo Verde, Rwanda and Namibia all score better on the Index compared to some OECD countries like Italy, Greece and Hungary. In addition, Botswana and Seychelles, which score 61 and 60 respectively, do better than Spain at 57,” it says.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
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