Ghana’s Politics Stinks of Corruption

Ghana’s Politics stinks of corruption, and polititicians are looting the resources whiles they pretend to be fighting the canker.

Transparency International has defined corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private or personal gain. It classified corruption as grand corruption, petty corruption and political corruption which are dependent on the pecuniary value and sector of occurrence.

Politics in Ghana has remained a scary venture for many who have what it takes to lead. For many right thinking members of the Ghanaian society, politics is not an option they want  to enter because, they have seen many fine and truthful men and women become liars and deceptive, engulfed overnight with unquenchable taste for stolen public funds using all maner of dubious means.

Rahman, 2018 in a report to Transparency International on corruption in Ghana revealed that Corruption is common placed in Ghana and it can be seen in all branches of the Ghanaian government. This is alarming, and be worry any citizen who is not thinking about his or her selfish interest and political affiliation but the well being of the over 30 million people in Ghana. In 2018, Ghana was the 78^th least corrupt country out of 175 countries from the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International.

The report indicated that political corruption as one form of corruption which continues to be a big problem. This is the case because, the resources of the state that are stolen by thieves with political power and this runs into millions of dollars and their acts are hidden most often from the public. Where it comes to the public domain, government and political leaders are unwilling to persecute its own people and such issues are swept under the carpet. A survey carried out by The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in 2016 for example revealed that in Ghana greed and selfishness among public officials were the main factors that fueled curruption bu politicians and persons in high position.

The NPP led government was very loud in making Ghanaians believe the government led by John Dramani Mahama was the most corrupt government Ghana has ever had. Today, they seem to be doing exactly what they hypocritically raised the red flag about while in opposition. They don’t have the “balls”  to presecute any one not even their own people with curruption scandals around their necks.

Members of parliament while candidates, promise to bring the moon to the zoo, get into power and fail to even bring monkeys to the sanctuary. They promise the very things they genuinely know they cannot deliver and know that things that are not within their powers to deliver.

Sadly, many politicians have become corruption tycoons and each election only sees one set of corrupt class change the baton with another. In Ghana today, any person holding political position cannot look God in the face and say, the party in power is not corrupt. The question is, are politicians in Ghana confident enough to tell the people that they are not corrupt or do not know anyone holding political power that is corrupt? The unchallengeable truth is that, there is none who can stand out.

According to the Transparency International, a global coalition against corruption,

• Widespread corruption exists in Ghana.
• There is a need for an all-inclusive anti-corruption law.
• Courts are commonly perceived to be vulnerable to corruption.
• Prosecution of crime is often lengthy and people often turn to informal arbitrations. Source : https://www.u4

In Ghana, every sincere citizen will be quick to attest to the fact that, corruption has remained one big destructive impediment to our economic and social development. It continuous to take away the very scarce resources politicians are to protect and use. They end up in their personal pockets. This usually deprives the citizenry the needed development. In many instances, politicians inflate estimates of projects and take all manner of kick backs. Vote buying and all manner of illicit election tacktics are deployed using such stolen funds by some of them.

The pace at which Ghanaian politicians rise from grass to grace and become financially over independent have become questionable with less proof to nail them down as being corrupt, they continue to milk the cow. Our democracy is one that makes corruption attractive and cancerous even within our public service and society at large.

Caucus for Democratic Governance Ghana (CDG-GH) and other civil society organizations believe the government led by President Nana Akuffo Addo is not really protecting the public purse. They summed it all up saying “Corruption has become a National disaster of extraordinary dimension and demands extraordinary measures to solve. Corruption is draining the public purse.”

As at August 2018, government had not less than 20 serious corruption allegations which have been swept under the carpet. One wonders if our leaders really want to uproot corruption in our governance system or they are watering it to grow unnoticed and allow it to flourish under their hypocritical watch.

Ghana is pretending to be dealing with corruption under the current government but let the truth be told, politicians are brainwashing us as far as the fight against corruption is concerned. The office of the special persecutor which was set up to persecute politicians under the previous government and to keep an eye on this government has gone to sleep. The country is bleeding under the watchful eye of the Martin Amidu, the sleeping beauty leading the fight against corruption.

The country is bleeding and the Special Prosecutor seems not to have the mandate to prosecute corruption in the Government. Why? and how long will it take to tart showing us convincing results?

Source: Wisdom Hammond |Newsghana24.com 

Works cited

Rahman, K. (2018). Overview of corruption and anticorruption in Ghana

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Corruption-has-become-a-national-disaster-under-Akufo-Addo-s-watch-Group-664250

https://www.u4.no/publications/overview-of-corruption-and-anti-corruption-in-ghana-2018-update