Fight against corruption must start with leadership – Ricketts-Hagan

Member of Parliament for Cape Coast South, Kweku George Ricketts-Hagan, has said the fight against corruption in the country should start with the leadership.

According to him, it is only real commitment at the leadership level that will ensure Ghana is able to nip the practice in the bud.

“It should start with leadership. If they are ready to fight and they mean it, that will change the status quo,” the former Deputy Finance Minister said on the Key Points with Dzifa Bampoh on TV3 Saturday January 29.

His comments come after Ghana failed to make progress in its fight against corruption as stated in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released today by Transparency International (TI).

The report scored Ghana 43 out of a possible clean score of 100 and ranked the country 73 out of 180 countries/territories included in the 2021 index.

This CPI score indicates that, Ghana failed to make progress in the fight against corruption in the year 2021 as the score of 43
is the same as the country’s 2020 score. Ghana’s current performance is still below 50 which is the expected average and thus leaves much to be desired.

“This CPI score indicates that, Ghana failed to make progress in the fight against corruption in the year 2021 as the score of 43 is the same as the country’s 2020 score,” said Ghana Integrity Initiative, the local chapter of Transparency International, in a statement.

A trend analysis of Ghana’s CPI scores over the past decade, presented in the chart below shows that, the country declined by 2 points.

Equatorial Guinea, Somalia and South Sudan have the lowest scores in the region.

“The 2021 index reveals that, Botswana (55), Lesotho (38), Eswatini (32), Niger (31), Nigeria (24), Comoros (20) and South Sudan (11) are all at historic lows. In the last decade, 43 countries in the region have either declined or made no significant progress,” the statement added.

On the global level, Denmark (88), Finland (88) and New Zealand (88) top the chart as the least corrupt countries, while Somalia (13), Syria (13) and South Sudan (11) remain at the bottom of the corruption perception index.