Corruption is Eating Up Nation’s Economy

Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh

The wanton spate of corruption, abuse, waste and other financial malfeasance in Ghana’s public service institutions is eating up Ghana’s economy.

Indeed, each year, the Auditor-General submits audited reports of all public offices, including the judiciary, the central and local government administrations, the Universities and other public institutions, as well as statutory corporations or organizations established by public enactment, or otherwise set up by public funds.

Sadly, over the last couple of decades, in each year’s audit report, the Auditor-General has drawn the attention of Ghanaians to cases of fraud, abuse and waste in the public service of Ghana.

The ongoing sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament is saddled with embezzlements that would make Ghanaians shudder.

A total of GH¢ 2.7 billion could not be accounted for by the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) due to lapses, irregularities and errors in the financial management of these MDAs, for the period 2008 to 2009, according to the report of the Auditor-General on the Public Accounts of Ghana, for the year ending 2009.

The whopping GH¢2.7 billion lost to the state could have been used to finance the ongoing Achimota-Ofankor road, or could have been used to put up health and educational facilities in the deprived areas of the country.

For instance, The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), which was the first to appear in the 2011 PAC sittings, was not able to come out clean on the embezzlement spree, as staggering revelations of financial impropriety were made against some officials of MOFEP.

The 2009 audit report indicated that during the audit of the treasury accounts of the Ministry, a schedule officer at the treasury, Mr. Francis Aryeetey, botched to produce payment voucher covering GH¢351,900.

According to the report, auditors were informed that Mr. Aryeetey allegedly effected the payment using falsified documents aimed at misappropriating the amount from the MOFEP Contingency Account Funds.

The Auditor-General report also identified another case of inappropriate payment of allowances to staff of the MOFEP amounting to GH ¢913,901.30, while the same Finance Ministry, between January 2006 and August 2009, paid monthly top-up allowances to staff of ministers and the Chief Director’s Secretariat, as well as the Budget and Economic Management Capacity Building (EMCB) Divisions.

The present and past reports of the Auditor-General express misgiving that fraudulent wage and salary payments also add up to the total wage bill in the public sector.

According to the reports, fraud, abuse and waste occur in several instances, because of low ethics in business and public administration, including the general lack of a system of internal checks, absences of effective pre-audit of pay documents, and lack of coordination between personnel and account sections within the same organization.

Furthermore, there is lack of ingenuity on the part of some public servants to take advantage of these weaknesses. Some public servants in Ghana are known to have been able to collect monthly salaries on two separate payment vouchers, by signing one and thumb printing the other.

Others have been able to collect monthly salaries concurrently, at two different stations of the same agency. Yet still, others have collected double pay, but from two different organizations within the public service. Those who have either directly manipulated the system to their personal benefit or indirectly benefited from the weaknesses include all types of public servants.

In his book entitled -’Ethics in Business and Public Administration’, Samuel Woode noted that the exploitation of these weaknesses has further made it possible for salaries to be paid over long periods of time, in respect of staff known to have resigned, retired, dismissed, or on leave of absence without pay.

A serious variation of the phenomenon is the payment of salaries to ‘ghost accounts’ of ‘ghost workers’ and fictitious names. This is the practice of inserting on the payroll names of ‘ghosts’ that are non-existent workers, opening for them bank accounts into which salaries are paid and subsequently misappropriated.

WHAT IS IT

Corruption encompasses abuses by government officials, such as embezzlement and nepotism, as well as abuses linking public and private actors such as bribery, extortion, influence peddling, and fraud. Additionally, corruption arises in political, bureaucratic and private offices and can be petty or grand, organized or unorganized. Corruption also facilitates criminal activities such as drug trafficking and even armed robbery.

GHANA’S PERFORMANCE

Research findings always point to the fact that corruption is a serious problem in Ghana. From 1999 – 2008, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has pointed to the fact that Ghana is far from winning the fight against corruption as a nation.

Ever since Ghana was included in the CPI reports in 1999, she has scored between 3.3 and 3.9 out of a clean score of 10. Ghana scored its highest of 3.9 in 2002 and 2008. Other surveys on corruption in Ghana, including those conducted by Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International (TI) – the world’s leading non-governmental organization devoted solely to curbing corruption, and Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) have shown that corruption is a major problem in the country.

Corruption has sunk deep into the moral fibre of the Ghanaian society, and leaders think more of themselves than of the people they lead, according to the Executive Secretary of GII, Vitus Azeem.

“They think they have sacrificed so much for the country that we owe them a duty to make live comfortable for them for the rest for their lives. Our politicians make laws and undertake expenditures aimed at ensuring comfortable lives for themselves and their elite colleagues without due consideration of the economic situation in the country and the living conditions of ordinary citizens. As if this is not enough, some of them turn to corruption and looting of the public purse, either to ensure they remain in power or retire to a comfortable life”, he says

The anti-corruption crusader was quick to add that: “In fact, corruption has become the norm rather than the exception. Public resources that would have gone to the provision of hospitals and drugs, schools and books are allegedly being siphoned into private pockets with impunity. Waste and inefficiencies are common because those who are supposed to supervise fail to do so either because they are irresponsible or because they stand to benefit from the lax system and processes”.

CAUSES

The causes and effects of corruption, and how to combat corruption, are issues that are increasingly on the national and international agendas of politicians and other policymakers and a major concern to ordinary citizens who get offended by the naked looting of their tax money with impunity.

The lack of political will in Ghana, as in most African countries, to fight corruption and too much rhetoric about anti- corruption are in themselves cause of further corruption. All previous rulers of Ghana have at least paid “lip service” to its eradication’.

Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor in 2001 declared a policy of zero tolerance for corruption and promised to promulgate a code of conduct to guide political appointees and establish an office within the Presidency to monitor it. Yet, up till today, corruption continues to be attributed to his administration and some of his officials.

The current President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills has promised transparent and accountable governance and a determination not to shield his officials. However, there are already signs of lapses and inaction where action is required, indicating the lack of an unwavering determination by our political leadership to tackle corruption.

Ghana has a culture where society admires and respects wealth without regard to how and where such wealth is acquired. One can add the lack of a systematic socialization process for inculcating ethical values into those already in the civil service and those desiring to enter public life. Poverty, economic pressures, inadequate remuneration and lack of a conducive environment for public officials to perform their duties effectively, are often advanced as excuses for corruption.

IMPACTS

The negative impacts of corruption are summarized in the statement by Hans Corell, a UN Legal Counsel: “Corruption is a poison that no society is free… In the developing countries, it poses a major obstacle to advancement. It destroys efforts to establish the rule of law, discourages investments and frustrates hopes of lifting the living standards of the poor”.

In the political realm, it undermines democracy and good governance by subverting formal processes. More generally, corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government as procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off, and officials are hired or promoted without regard to performance. At the same time, corruption undermines the legitimacy of government and such democratic values as trust and tolerance.

Corruption also undermines Ghana’s economic development by generating considerable distortions and inefficiency. In the private sector, corruption increases the cost of business through the price of illicit payments themselves, the management cost of negotiating with officials, and the risk of breached agreements or detection.

Corruption also generates economic distortions in Ghana’s public sector by diverting public investment away from education and into capital projects where bribes and kickbacks are more plentiful. Officials may increase the technical complexity of public sector projects to conceal such dealings, thus further distorting investment.

STIFFER PUNISHMENT

The Committee for Joint Action (CJA), a leading pressure group in Ghana and all those who are calling on government to take drastic measures to retrieve all monies lost to the state through embezzlement must be commended.

Persons found to have acted in a manner that flouted the country’s existing laws, on the disbursement of public funds, as captured in the Auditor-General’s report should be made to face the music for their uncharitable action(s). We would continue to dissuade diabolic public officials from lining their pockets with ill-gotten public funds, the group added.

To further address fraud in the public sector, some Ghanaians are calling on Parliament to expedient action on the Financial Administrative Tribunal bill to enforce the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee on the Auditor-General reports. We can not continue to let state looters go without punishment, he indicated