CPI 2023: We Don’t Need International Organisations To Tell Us How Corrupt We Are; It’s Too Obvious – EFL

The Transparency International Anticorruption Centre has released its Corruption Perception Index (CPI) yesterday January 31, 2023. The CPI seeks to score countries on their corruption status based on the public sector corruption in 180 countries globally.

Ghana scored 43 out of 100 which suggests that the country is still not free from corruption-related issues. The country has remained average at its current score and rank over the last three years. Denmark scored 90, perceived to be the cleanest country globally while Somalia scored 12 to record the least rank as the highly corrupt country.

According to the Transparency International Anticorruption Centre, “A country’s score is the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean”.

“Each country’s score is a combination of at least 3 data sources drawn from 13 different corruption surveys and assessments. These data sources are collected by a variety of reputable institutions, including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum”.

“The data sources used to compile the CPI specifically cover the following manifestations of public sector corruption: bribery, diversion of public funds, officials using their public office for private gain without facing consequences, ability of governments to contain corruption in the public sector, excessive red tapes in the public sector which may increase opportunities for corruption, nepotistic appointments in the civil service.

The remaining surveys include; laws ensuring that public officials must disclose their finances and potential conflicts of interest, legal protection for people who report cases of bribery and corruption, State capture by narrow vested interests and access to information on public affairs or government activities”.

The Economic Fighters League, a non-governmental organisation has reacted to the index exhibiting no sign of surprise about the country’s place in this year’s edition and last year’s survey.

Speaking on Opemsuo Radio’s Nkwantananso show with George Opoku Mensah (Agudey), the National Spokesperson for the Economic Fighters League (EFL), Mr Nii Aryee-Opare stated that “the level of corruption in the country is too obvious and we don’t need an international organization to tell us this obvious fact”.

According to him, “this palpable fact has already been established through the Auditor-General’s report; it is something happening on the grounds which Ghanaians are aware and do not need such report to accept this unambiguous fact”.

He added that “the Imani Ghana and Auditor-General’s Reports indicate that the country lost US$6 billion in two years, that is, 2020 and 2021 through corruption, meanwhile the government is now chasing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $ 3 billion loan bailout facility which is only half of the money lost”.

“If the government has taken keen interest in dealing with the loopholes in the system we wouldn’t be chasing money that we have earlier lost twice that amount”. To him, the government wouldn’t need to go to the IMF for a bailout if things had been done right.

Mr Aryee-Opare said, “The Auditor-General’s Report is being published yearly since 1993 but nothing is being done about it, especially on the side of the Attorney General who is the government’s legal assistant”.

He insisted that “the Attorney General should have been the agent to spearhead the prosecution of corrupt government officials and Ghanaians found guilty of corrupt charges and allegations but it is quite unfortunate that we have not lived to witness such mandate vested in the Attorney General”.

He added that “the Office of the Special Prosecutor has come to the scene but nothing much has been done about corruption in the country”.

The Economic Fighters League Spokesperson emphasized that there are laws available to help in fighting corruption but leaders responsible for the enforcement of the laws are not patriotic enough to activate the laws to deal with perpetrators. “It is quite noting that these leaders are mostly found to be the perpetrators in this regard and until we act thoroughly about this issue, it will be very difficult to see progress in our country”, he added.

Source: Opemsuo.com/ Effah Mensah William