[ 2015-01-31 ]

Ghanaians' tolerance for corruption is too much – Bagbin
Mr. Alban Bagbin, the Majority Leader in
Parliament, has said Ghanaians have too much
tolerance for corruption, hence, the lack of moral
courage to fight the canker.

This attitude of the citizenry towards corruption,
he said, was part of the reason why it had become
difficult to fully fight to eliminate or reduce
corruption to the barest minimum to propel the
country’s development agenda.

Mr. Bagbin made the observation on Thursday while
delivering a Lecture on the theme: “Corruption
and National Development” organised by the
Faculty of Integrated Development Studies (FIDS)
of the University for Development Studies (UDS),
Wa Campus.

Mr. Bagbin who is also the Member of Parliament
(MP) for the Nadowli-Kaleo, said the continued
focus on political corruption was one of the
reasons why the country could not fight corruption
the way it ought to fight to reduce or eliminate
it.

“We cannot fight corruption if citizens continue
to think that corruption is only among some class
of people and not among everybody”, he said.

Mr. Bagbin said corrupt practices according to the
recently approved and adopted National
Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) included
bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation, trading
in influence, abuse of office, abuse of power,
illicit enrichment, laundering of proceeds of
crime, concealment, obstruction of justice,
patronage, nepotism and conflict of interest.

He mentioned lack of ill-defined code of conduct,
ethics, laws, rules and regulations; poor
enforcement of laws, rules and regulations; wide
and high discretionary powers bestowed on
individuals; bad governance and absence of
integrity as some of the causes of corruption in
the country.

Others, he said, are self discipline and the
culture of untruth, leading to poor ethical
standards; poverty; weak institutions as well as
the politicization of corruption and the
corruption of politics.

Touching on the effects of corruption on national
Development, the Majority Leader said for Ghana,
corruption continued to exert a heavy toll on the
economy, society and politics, thereby retarding
development.

Mr. Bagbin suggested public sector reforms,
strengthening key anti-corruption and law
enforcement agencies, public awareness and
education, prevention of corruption, improvement
in investigation and prosecution, creating an
enabling environment, involvement of stakeholders
and monitoring and evaluation as the way forward
in curbing corruption in the country.

He said global, continental and national efforts
had yielded an acceptable consensus as to what
corruption is or is not and that the strongest
message emerging from all the long diagnostic
studies and clinical observation and experiences
was that pervasive and systematic corruption could
be curbed only through a broad-based campaign
involving all sectors of the society.

“A successful campaign requires a clear and
unambiguous, strong and sustained political will
of the country’s leaders to create an atmosphere
in which wrong-doing was not tolerated,” he
said.

The majority leader noted that effective use of
the law was crucial for defining acceptable and
unacceptable practices, as well as for setting out
the penalties for wrongdoers.

“However, reliance on the law and its
enforcement cannot be the only answer, for the
simple reason that law only comes into force when
a crime is detected”, he said.

Mr. Bagbin said a successful campaign must include
measures aimed at its roots and that this included
the reform of laws, regulations and procedures and
because of their poor design, afforded public
servants opportunities or temptation for
corruption.

It included public education as well, because an
informed and angry public can be a vital tool in
combating corruption, especially once people were
aware of its cost to society and its impact on
public welfare, the MP pointed out.

The Majority Leader also said public sector reform
is equally critical and that Ghana like other
countries must re-instill within public officials
a sense of service to their country and its
people.

“This can come, in part, by providing descent
wages for public sector work and by replacing
patronage and cronyism with a merit based reward
system”, Mr. Bagbin explained.

“If we fail to take these measures, our NACAP
will remain a paper tiger”, the Majority Leader
in Parliament concluded.

Source - GNA

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