Ghana not doing enough to prevent corruption – GII

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) says Ghana’s fight against corruption is insufficient and may not yield desired results if more targeted efforts are not made.

Fundraising Manager, Michael Boadi said while there appears to be a lot of talk against the menace, the commitment needed to nip the menace in the bud is lacking.

“We are not doing enough to prevent corruption. We are doing a lot of lip service, talking and pretense in our quest to fight corruption so people are not afraid,” he said on Joy News’ current affairs programme, PM Express.

The show was discussing the fallout from Manasseh Azure Awuni’s latest documentary, ‘Contracts For Sale’, where the CEO of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) Adjenim Boateng Adjei was fingered selling government contracts.

The investigative price revealed how a company, Talent Discovery Limited (TDL), incorporated in June 2017 by the PPA boss won majority of government contracts through restrictive tendering.

The president has suspended Mr Adjei

After winning the government contracts, however, TDL then proceeds to sell the contracts to other companies.

During the undercover investigations, TDL was ready to sell one worth a ¢22.3 million to a non-existent entity during an undercover investigation.

Mr. Adjei claims the company engaged in the sale of government contracts belonged to his brother-in-law one Francis Arhin but later indicated that he was a part shareholder.

Talent Discovery Limited has had contracts with the Ghana Water Company (GWCL), Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GHPHA).

The GII which partly funded the documentary believes all these could have been prevented if the systems put in place to check such malfeasance where active.

Mr. Boadi believes what is lacking in Ghana’s fight against corruption and its related offences are the enforcement of laws.

He said if the laws are implemented as they should, corruption will not see the light of day in Ghana.

“We have laws. We pretend to be implementing the laws and somehow, people who seem to know more about various regulations lookout for gaps in the regulations and take advantage of it. And even when they are caught, it doesn’t seem like we have cracked the whip enough to deter people.

“The national anti-corruption action plan says that we must make corruption a high risk and low gain venture, but we have turned it around, corruption has now become high gain and low risk and so everybody who gains the slightest opportunity wants to explore it,” he stated.

Mr. Boadi also questioned the rationale behind the procurement method used in securing the TDL contracts.

He wondered if the laws governing procurement practices in the country were followed in the award of all 14 contracts based on a restricted tender.

“I don’t believe that all the 14 procurements that involved the TDL passes any of those prescriptions that the law prescribed. So what informed the decision for the entity tender committee to even forward a request for restrictive tender, beats everyone’s imagination.

“There is just a whole gamut of institutional and procedural failure that we all gloss over. This thing has gone on over and over and it looks like all the problematic procurement had either gone through restrictive tender, sole-sourcing or any of the exceptional procurement methods,” he added.