Demba Ali Jawo, Former Minister Of Information
By D. A. Jawo
The Ghanaian President-elect, John Dramani Mahama, as part of his transitional preparations, had set up an anti-corruption team whose role would be to put in place strong and effective anti-corruption policies for his in-coming administration.
While that seems like a positive indication of President Mahama’s commitment to fight corruption, but only time will tell whether it is the ‘new broom sweeps clean’ syndrome quite common with many new African governments or a genuine commitment to fight the menace.
We in this country also had seen a similar commitment by the government of President Adama Barrow when it first came to power in 2017. Quite a lot of noise was made with regard to the determination by the new administration to fight the rampant corruption inherited from the Yahya Jammeh regime. We all saw the drafting of an anti-corruption bill which was submitted to the National Assembly for enactment. However, instead of pursuing the matter with the same vigour, the bill was virtually abandoned in the National Assembly for almost four years, with hardly anyone showing commitment to getting it passed. It was not until December 2023 when it was eventually passed, although with quite a lot of watering down by supporters of the government, making it much milder than was initially anticipated by its architects.
It is now more than a year since the passing of the bill and there is no indication as to when the long-anticipated anti-corruption commission would be set up, which is an apparent manifestation of the government’s lack of political will to tackle the rampant corruption pervading the economy. Everyone is therefore wondering why it has taken this long for the government to set up the commission when corruption is continuing to ravage every sector of the society.
We continue to hear numerous audit reports of fraud and other corrupt practices in several public institutions but virtually nothing seems to be done about it. This is apparently because with the absence of an anti-corruption commission, there is no central body charged with the responsibility of dealing with the issue, thus giving the public service workers the carte blanche to carry on with their nefarious escapades without being accountable to anyone.