By Gifty Amofa, GNA
Accra, July 13, GNA - Stakeholders in the fight against corruption have called for a sustained effort to maintain actions to dealing with corruption that was engulfing the African Continent.
Discussions, education, and awareness among other activities must be continuously done so as to minimise it if not eliminated.
Mr Benjamin Komla Kpodo, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ho Central and a member of the African Parliamentary Network against Corruption (APNAC), made these known at a roundtable discussion to commemorate the African Day against Corruption held in Accra.
The Day has been approved by the African Union (AU) to be observed on July 11 yearly, and it was organised by the Ghana Integrity International (GII) and its partners including APNAC, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, National Commission on Civic Education and Penplusbytes, an international institute of ICT Journalism.
It was on the theme: “Winning the fight against corruption: A sustainable path to Africa’s transformation,” and some of the activities to go with the celebration are debate competition among schools on how to tackle corruption and a roundtable discussion by stakeholders.
He said such projects were characterised by events whereby large group of people were brought together and right after that, everyone forgets about it, saying, there must be a continuous effort to deal with it for favourable results.
Mr Kpodo stated that it was high time politicians who used corruption accusations to dethrone their opponents in order to take their positions only for them to repeat what they accused their rivals of, got punished for using such propagandist tool.
He pointed out that tackling corruption should not be done at only the public sector but the public and private sectors should work together most of the time, it was the private people that lured people in the public sector into committing the corrupt practices.
The Parliamentarian was disgusted about how people who became rich overnight due to corruption were eulogised, though their work did not pay that much, making the act acceptable and stressed that they should be punished to serve as deterrent.
Institutions, witnesses and others mandated or willingly fighting corruption must be resourced and protected if the country wanted to deal with corrupt activities, the MP advised.
He emphasised that by putting all these in place, enough awareness and education would be done and there would be considerable change of attitude among the citizenry.
Mr Daniel Batidam, a former Chair of the AU Advisory Board, said fighting corruption was not about morality but developmental issue which had eroded people’s equity because leaders had failed to deliver.
He said laws did not fight corruption but the people and called on individuals to demand for accountability from their leaders as good governance would not be supplied unless demanded.
Mr Samuel Akuamoah, Deputy Chairperson of NCCE called on the media to as part of their corporate social responsibility, do a retrospective analysis on corruption periodically in the society to throw more light on the topic.
GNA
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