Mr. Casely Hayford contends that that levels of corruption in Ghana merited a much steeper fall in the index.

[contextly_sidebar id=”IKv8ISxI69u4iCbDcdJGZWxMDm4d2gWX”]”The Perception Index is incorrect. We should be lower down the scale. We should be far lower down the scale. I think this is a very good [rating],” he stated on The Big Issue.

Ghana dropped 11 places from the 2016 ranking to place 81 out of 180 countries in the 2017 Corruption Perception index.

The report, put together by Transparency International, ranks countries annually by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.

The mark was out of a total of 100 was 40, down from 43, which the country attained in the 2016 index.

But the drop by just three points did not reflect the state of Ghana which has so many unpardonable ills, according to Mr. Casely Hayford.

“If you got 43 percent one year and the following year you go 40 percent in an examination, you haven’t done too badly. Maybe some other people worked a little harder and therefore they pipped you but you don’t fall down dramatically. I have reached a point where everywhere I turn in this country, everything I look at seems to be wrong and they seem to be easily correctable.”

He, however, opined that the 2018 score could see some improvement following improved attempts by the Akufo-Addo administration to fight corruption that may not have reflected in the 2017 index.

“A lot of things that have been done by this current government would not have made a significant impact on the perception index. It needs time for the data sets to be complete and comparable before you can actually go ahead so we will probably see a little bit more next year.”

Index factored in Mahama government

Though critics have cited the index as proof of the government’s inability to fight corruption effectively, the government has countered by saying the index also took into account corruption cases recorded under the John Mahama administration, which left power in January 2017.

The Ghana Integrity Initiative’s (GII) also noted that Ghana’s score of 40 points was likely a reflection of the insufficient investigations, prosecutions and sanctioning of corrupt acts, per data sources from 2016.

“It is important to remind ourselves of the plethora of corruption exposés during the period in question which might have influenced the perception of the respondents to the surveys as well as the business experts – examples include the 2016 election-related corruption issues, Bus Branding scandal, Ghana Standards Authority $1.2m Corruption Scandal, Central Medical Stores Arson Saga, National Lottery Authority bribery and numerous adverse findings in annual Audit Reports on the Public Sector,” the statement accompanying the current index stated.

It should be noted that only two of nine data sources used were from 2016; the Global Insight Country Risk Ratings and the African Development Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Corruption ranking was charitable, we deserved worse – Casely Hayford appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking to Citi News, the Minority Spokesperson on Communications, A.B.A. Fuseini said the drop in Ghana’s ranking on the Index proves that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is unwilling to fight the canker.

[contextly_sidebar id=”d7I9yMEhSkUtEaxHk9kksWjaka357oUD”]”It is a vindication of us in the Minority; that we had said consistently that there has been so much corruption in this government. In the one-year-old government of President Nana Akufo-Addo, the corruption has been stinking to the high heavens,” he said.

He cited the $2.25 billion bond saga, which he said “the government was not even interested” in looking into.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta was accused of cronyism by the Minority in the bond issue, although the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) cleared him of any conflict of interest.

Mr. Fuseini noted other allegations of corruption which have been made under the current administration saying, “we have had the occasion to talk about the five million contaminated litres of fuel which were sent out under corrupt and opaque circumstances. We’ve had premix fuel issues. We have had issues coming from Korle Bu. We have had issues at the Presidency itself.”

Ghana dropped 11 places from the 2016 ranking to place 81 out of 180 countries in the 2017 Corruption Perception index.

Ghana’s mark out of a total of 100 was 40, down from 43, which the country attained in the 2016 index.

Index factored in Mahama government

The government has however argued that Ghana’s poor performance in the 2017 Global Corruption Perception Index also took into account corruption cases recorded under the John Mahama administration, which left power in January 2017.

The government’s Spokesperson on Governance and Legal Affairs, Herbert Krapa, stated that the report was not an indication that the current New Patriotic Party [NPP] government was corrupt.

The Ghana Integrity Initiative’s (GII) also noted that Ghana’s score of 40 points was likely a reflection of the insufficient investigations, prosecutions and sanctioning of corrupt acts, per data sources from 2016.

“It is important to remind ourselves of the plethora of corruption exposés during the period in question which might have influenced the perception of the respondents to the surveys as well as the business experts – examples include the 2016 election-related corruption issues, Bus Branding scandal, Ghana Standards Authority $1.2m Corruption Scandal, Central Medical Stores Arson Saga, National Lottery Authority bribery and numerous adverse findings in annual Audit Reports on the Public Sector,” the statement accompanying the current index stated.

It should be noted that only two of 13 data sources were from 2016, the Global Insight Country Risk Ratings and the African Development Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment.

Ghana’s past performance

The report, put together by Transparency International, ranks countries annually by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.

In the 2016 Corruption Perception Index ranking, Ghana dropped four percentage points, scoring 43 out of a clean score of 100.

In 2015, Ghana improved slightly on 2014’s figure with a rank of 56 out of 168 countries and a score of 47.

Thus, Ghana slid back by one percentage point from the 48 points scored in 2014.

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By: Duke Mensah Opoku & Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Corruption ranking proves rot in Nana Addo gov’t – Minority appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.