In commemoration of this year\u2019s International Anti-Corruption Day, Corruption Watch wishes to call attention to
\nthe need for unity of purpose on the political leadership front to optimize efforts at fighting corruption.
\nIndeed, the need for unity of purpose to confront the canker of corruption head-on at this time of our nation\u2019s life
\ncannot be overemphasized.
\nAs we know, Ghana is faced with economic difficulty that can partly be attributed to the wastage of the nation\u2019s
\nresources through profligate expenditures. Therefore, it is apt that this year\u2019s international anti-corruption day is
\nbeing observed under the theme, \u201cUNCAC at 20: Uniting the World Against Corruption.\u201d
\nIt must be noted that Ghana is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). Ghana
\nsigned the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) on 9th December 2004 and ratified it on 16th
\nDecember 2005. Ghana submitted its instrument of ratification to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on
\n24th June 2007.
\nIn 2021, the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) assessed that the \u2018Status of implementation and
\nenforcement in practice\u2019 of UNCAC provisions in Chapter II (Prevention) & Chapter V (Asset Recovery) ranged
\nfrom \u201cpoor\u201d to \u201cmoderate\u201d.
\nIn this regard, Corruption Watch opines that state actors, especially government must lead all stakeholders to
\nrally efforts towards demonstrating a better commitment to implementing and enforcing the provisions of the
\nUNCAC to effectively combat corruption.<\/p>\n
We make the following specific demands: About Corruption Watch Ghana<\/strong> For more information, please contact:<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In commemoration of this year\u2019s International Anti-Corruption Day, Corruption Watch wishes to call attention to the need for unity of purpose on the political leadership front to optimize efforts at fighting corruption. Indeed, the need for unity of purpose to confront the canker of corruption head-on at this time of our nation\u2019s life cannot be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corruption-watch-exclusive","category-from-around-the-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1282,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions\/1282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cddgh.org\/corruptionwatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPolitical leadership<\/strong>
\ni. Political leaders on all sides of the political divide must unite and make a conscious effort to frontally deal
\nwith corruption.
\nii. We urge parliament to conclude and release its report on the bipartisan investigation conducted into the
\nprocurement of covid-19 vaccines by the Ministry of Health.
\niii. Political leaders must come together to deal with the issue of campaign finance and work at reducing
\nthe influence of money in our politics to arrest the deepening phenomenon of State capture by elite
\nindividuals including powerful politicians.
\nInstitutional leadership<\/strong>
\ni. Institutional leadership is another key factor that must be strengthened in the fight against corruption.
\nii. We cannot speak on this matter without commending the good works of the Special Prosecutor for taking
\nup and showing interest in national issues such as the Labianca Case, the acquisition of national assets as
\ncaptured in the will of the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, the bribery and corruption scandal which captured
\nformer minister of state at the Ministry of Finance, among others.
\niii. We take this opportunity to call on other state institutions such as CHRAJ, EOCO, Auditor General, Internal
\nAudit Agency, Public Accounts Committee, etc. to follow suit by working together to decisively make
\ncorruption an expensive venture.
\niv. We also wish to draw the attention of the judiciary to delays in prosecution and urge the courts to deal
\nexpeditiously with corruption cases to preserve the value of money and resources stolen from the state as
\nasset recovery is not being done at an optimum level in this country.
\nNon-State actors<\/strong>
\ni. Corruption Watch calls on civil society organizations, traditional authorities, religious leaders, and private
\nsector leaders to prioritize unity to promote democracy.
\nii. We call on chiefs and religious leaders to discontinue and discourage the practice where they bring their
\ninfluence to bear on state actors handling matters related to corruption.
\niii. We reiterate that citizens must avoid seeing corruption as normal. When you see something, say
\nsomething. Every Ghanaian should make it a personal mission to get involved in the fight against it in all
\nits forms, including bribery.
\nRight to Information<\/strong>
\nWe recognize the importance of the Right to Information Act and recommend that exemptions should be made
\nfor fee-free access to information by the media and non-profit organizations that access information for non-profit purposes. This will encourage better participation by citizens and non-state actors in the efforts at fighting
\ncorruption.
\n \u00a0-End<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nCorruption Watch Ghana, with sponsorship from the Danish Embassy and the Department for International
\nDevelopment (DFID), is an initiative by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and a
\ncoalition of anti-corruption civil society organizations including, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Ghana Anti
\nCorruption Coalition (GACC), Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) and Multimedia
\nPlatforms Joy FM and Adom FM as our main media partners.<\/p>\n
\nName: Sharon Willis Brown-Acquah
\nDesignation: Digital Content Officer
\nEmail: s.brown@cddgh.org
\nPhone Number: +233 54 457 709<\/p>\n