GETTING TO GRIPS WITH CORRUPTION

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The OSP’s challenges have brought corruption to the center of our national dialogue again. There are all kinds of suggestions about how to strengthen OSP etc. Most of these isolated measures will not work. They are superficial and piecemeal. Our problem, mainly is not our institutions but our character. We have met the enemy and he is us– all of us. Corruption, which is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, is a complex, interlocking problem, rooted in our culture that require a co-ordinated, sustained assault. And it has existed since biblical times. Isaiah 1:4 laments, “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evil doers, children who deal corruptly.” In 2019, Ghana Intergrity Initiative estimated that we lose $ 3 billion( US) a year to corruption.

They were extremely modest. Every government including Nkrumah’s have had challenges with Corruption. Indeed, Nkrumah’s government almost collapsed before independence due to some shenanigans with cocoa revenues that sent Ohene Djan to jail. And there was Ankrah and Nzeribe and Busia’s lament about corrupt officials to the kalabule Era and the hapless Limann before the accountability and probity man, Rawlings saw his own scandals. Unfortunately, Corruption has been taken to new heights under the 4th Republic. Young men and women take office as paupers and come to own glitzy mansions in a few short years.

Corruption masquerades brazenly as philanthropy in front of our eyes. Political party nominations are sold in front of our collective eyes to the highest bidders. MMDCEships are sold and the prices discussed openly. Judicial verdicts, including for election disputes are delivered in exchange for cash. Work put in front of Parliament must be accompanied by envelopes. And in the last 8 years, it seemed, instead of having a country with criminal mafias, we had a Mafia that had a country to pillage. Unfortunately, the RESET– at least on accountability has stalled due to the fizzling ORAL and the mainly partisan profusion of “Nolle Prosequi”s! Despite our collective despair, we can and must do something about corruption. It is at the core of our underdevepment. Prof. HKP has tied the viability of the OSP to constitutional reforms that will strengthen it. He is right. It must be strengthened and anchored in the constitution. But anti-corruption reforms that do not significantly bring accountability and transparency to our politics beginning with our parties will be futile.

We must demonitize our party primaries by opening them up and criminalizing the exchange of money for votes. Let’s take the party membership registers out of the hands of secretive criminal party gurus and allow direct election of MMDCEs, party officers and nominees for Parliament and presidency. Corrupt parties can never beget honest governments!!Second, let Parliament be independent of the Presidency and transparent. We cannot have a businessman walk onto the floor of Parliament with money to bribe MPs and not have any prosecution. That’s an affront to the dignity of Parliament and our motto, “Freedom and Justice.” There must be lifestyle audits, not just for politicians but judges as well. There are retired judges living in opulence who will have a hard time explaining their wealth– just like some politicians.

Mr. President, you once described Ghana as “a crime scene”. Your excellency, a “crime scene” must have criminals. What is happening to ORAL? Why haven’t you opened the books on judgement debt payments under the NADAA administration? To the anti-corruption agencies, I am tired of Manasseh and Anas alone exposing more corruption than you do. It is time to stop going after “akronfuo nkiti nkiti” and go after the kingpins. Why are we going after those around NADAA while we ignore him? Isn’t it time to go to the man who pledged to ” protect the public purse” and ask him why and how it was looted? Was he a “simpa payin” who knew nothing or the Michiavellian archtect of the looting? Many countries have held former chief executives to account, including Togo, Bolivia, Japan and France. If we are serious, we must do the same. Speaker Bagbin has launched an Integrity Initiative.

That should help but those who seek equity must come with clean hands and charity, it is said, begins at home. Let Parliament be clean so it can demand cleanness on behalf of the people. Ultimately though, a corrupt people cannot demand integrity from their leaders. When the President and VP decided to pay their wives corruptly, we shamed them and they returned the loot. A people, led by moral religious leaders who vote their conscience and demand integrity will always get what they demand.

The Dutch humanist, Desiderius Erasmus, a more ethical contemporary of Michiavelli wrote, ” Corrupt princes pick out from the mass of their subjects a wicked few who use cunningly chosen pretexts and constantly changing excuses to drain off both the strength and the wealth of the people and then convert it to their own account—-. It is as if the prince were the enemy of his people, not the father, and the prince’s best Minister the man who most effectively thwarts the well-being of the people.” My fellow Ghanaians, let’s aspire to Erasmus, not Michiavelli! God bless Ghana.

Arthur Kobina Kennedy ( 12/12/25)