Board Member resigns in protest over corruption in African Union

In what would be the first ever resignation of an African Union official over corruption within the institution to be known, a Ghanaian serving on the AU Advisory Board on Corruption has resigned, citing persistent corruption in the organization. Usually, individuals unhappy with issues in the organization leave quietly not wanting to rock the boat. Some people who are dissatisfied with the AU don’t resign, they get sucked in, and the few who resign never state the specific reasons for their decisions.

But Ghanaian member of the organisation’s Advisory Board on Corruption, Daniel Batidam resigned, clearly citing corruption and bad governance among his reasons.

“After witnessing several instances and degrees of bad governance, including the abuse of entrusted power (or corruption), lack of probity, accountability, transparency and integrity at the Secretariat of the AUABC and some Departments of the AU Commission itself for over a period of three years now, while efforts at seeking redress have yielded no results, I have decided on grounds of principle that enough is enough,” Batidam wrote in the June 8, 2018 letter.

Batidam who was elected twice to serve on the Board in January 2015 for a term of two years and again in January 2017 to serve for a second term of another two years in line with Article 22 of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption once served as the anti-corruption advisor of the former President of Ghana, John Mahama.

The AUC declared 2018 as the Africa Anti-corruption year. The continent according to an AU study loses some $148 billion annually to corruption.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
Copyright ©2018 by Creative Imaginations Publicity
All rights reserved. This news item or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in reviews.