[ 2011-04-18 ]

Information Minister John Tia Akologo

Corruption persist within state agencies - US report
The US State Department's 2010 Report on Human
Rights in Ghana has indicted the country for
corruption, which it says permeates majority of
state agencies, regardless of the regulations in
place to punish officials.

However, the Minister of Information, Mr John Tia
Akologu, has taken exception to some aspects of
the report, saying corruption is not anybody's
creation but a canker being dealt with by the
government on all fronts.

The report, released in April this year and
published on the website of the US State
Department, cited the police and judicial
officials for corruption, indicating that "the
police had set up barriers to extort money from
motorists, whereas judicial officials accepted
bribes to expedite or postpone cases or otherwise
lose records."

According to the report, it was the expectation of
the US government that the numerous cases of
embezzlement of public funds by ministries,
departments, agencies and district assemblies
uncovered during the 2010 Parliament Public
Accounts Committee (PAC) hearings would be
prosecuted even as the government made strides to
reduce corruption.

It also identified excessive use of force by the
police which resulted in deaths and injuries as
well as prolonged pre-trial detention that
threatened the condition of criminal suspects, as
the worst form of human rights violation.

Expatiating on the human rights situation, the
report indicated that although there were no
reports that the government or its agents
committed politically motivated killings,
excessive use of force by the security agencies
had resulted in the death of several armed
criminal suspects and other persons during the
year under review.

It cited an instance when an inmate of the
Koforidua Prison died on his way to hospital on
April 28, 2010, with a local newspaper alleging
that the deceased prisoner had died from injuries
inflicted during torture, as against explanations
from prison officials that he had died of
illness.

It expressed regret that no post-mortem
examination was conducted as the police service
denied requests by hospital staff to conduct
same.

It also identified violence against women and
children, including Female Genital Mutilation
(FGM), social discrimination against women, gays
and lesbians, as well as persons with
disabilities, coupled with the arbitrary arrest of
journalists, as forms of human rights violation.

The report also cited the setting ablaze of an
alleged witch in Tema, for which six people were
standing trial, with frequent adjournments of the
case, and said more action could have been
expedited to enable the case to move beyond the
district magistrate’s court to a higher one.

Reacting to the report, Mr Akologo expressed
surprise at some of its contents and described
them as baseless.

According to him, there had been no political
situation in the country in which the government
had unleashed the police on people, although there
had been a few security concerns over the police
and armed suspects engaging each other in gun
battles which resulted in the death of some
suspects.

Mr Akologo described the corruption charges as a
canker which was not the making of the government
and indicated the determination of the
Mills-administration to wage a relentless war on
corruption.

Source - MyjoyOnline

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