Ghana’s democracy facilitates corruption – Movement Against Corruption

Anti-Corruption Group, Citizens Movement Against Corruption, says that Ghana’s Constitutional arrangements need amendment to make separation of powers distinct in order to fight corruption head-on.

Speaking to Naa Dede Tettey on Starr Today, Chairman for the Citizen Movement, Edem Senanu, pointed out that the structure of the 1992 Constitution makes it difficult for appointees to hold each other accountable.

“We have challenges with our democratic arrangement that seems to facilitate corruption. You have the situation where the Executive appoints people from Parliament that are supposed to supervise the Executive.

“Once you appoint people from Parliament, it’s the ability to point out mistakes whether it’s procurement related etcetera, you have Parliament compromised. Because many of its Members are appointed as Ministers and Deputy Ministers, so they would not want to raise their voice when things are going wrong,” he disclosed.

Mr. Senanu also added that people will continue in corruption with impunity when there are no visible cases of persons found capable of the law dealt.

“The level of prosecution and sanction has been limited. You see human beings begin to stop something when the risks involved are clear. So when you have a situation where quite a number of people have been investigated, prosecuted and sanctioned. And as it were they have been found culpable and jailed and that is publicly known. With the numbers increasing then it will serve as a deterrent.”

He also touched on political party financing law that set the ceiling on how much an individual can give to a party or Corporate entities can give to a party.

“Even a political season must be defined 6-months June to December. So that you don’t have three years of campaigning and then recapture such a big debt when you come in. You are only looking at how you can manipulate contracts and make the money back,” he added.