A private legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah has described government’s “seeming” fight against corruption as a joke.
According to him,government has deliberately deprived the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) of the requisite resources to employ competent lawyers to deal with the canker.
He made the comments at a forum organized by pressure group Occupy Ghana, held to discuss issues of corruption especially within the public and private sectors.
“Our efforts at fighting corruption is nothing but a joke, charade, mockery and hoax..” he said.
Ace Ankomah said the elements of corruption have become so evident in the country that “people in the public office are influenced in the course of their job.”
He noted the Auditor General’s Department has failed to prosecute auditors who have either failed to unravel various corrupt practices or present false information to government.
“There is a specific law in Ghana which says that if the Audit Service sends auditors out, and anybody comes with a false report the person can go to jail so auditors from the audit service must walk the straight and narrow, you and I know that that it is not happening.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”xCLHqAWObUmzT1Juv1tCcbjL8fHPzks5″]According to him, monies paid to influence top officials are regarded by the law as crime.
“Whether the bribe is prepaid, contemporaneous or postpaid, our law says it is a crime..,” he stressed.
His statement comes after a former Commissioner of CHRAJ, Emile Short said Ghana’s corruption has reached frightening proportions.
“The lack of accountability, the mind set of people going into public office and also the fact that there is no sensitisation or awareness creation about the evils of corruption and the cost of corruption,”Emile Short said.
The Head of the Human Security Department of the National Security Secretariat, Brigadier-General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (rtd) recently expressed concern about the never-ending corruption cases in Ghana,saying the situation had reached an epidemic levels.
Ace Ankomah emphasized the need for the Attorney General’s department to offer explanations as to why it has decided to allow individuals indicted in various corrupt scandals to go unpunished.
By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana