Can High-Level Corruption In Ghana Ever Be Drastically Reduced?

There are many Ghanaians, who have often wondered, whether or not high-level corruption can ever be drastically reduced, in our homeland Ghana.

The plain truth, alas, is that for as long as politicans and their spouses do not publicly publish their assets, before national elections, and for as long as political parties do not publicly publish all the sources of their campaign funding, high-level corruption will persist in Ghana.

For that reason, we must always commend and encourage political parties, which appeal for traceable funds from the general public, to fund their election campaigns - for they are freeing themselves from the clutches of the vested interests that have bought our democratic system: and are bleeding Mother Ghana dry.

That is why all patriotic and independent-minded Ghanaians, who are passionate about their country, and seek its well-being at all material times, must commend the New Patriotic Party (NPP), for launching an appeal for funds, for its campaign for the November presidential and parliamentary elections.

Hopefully, the party will compile a database, which will enable the identities of all donors who contribute money to its campaign, to be verified - to prove wrong those cynics, who insist that the party's appeal for funds, is a clever ruse, to enable the NPP hide the real identities of its largest secret donors.

A major reason why high-level corruption still persists in Ghana, is because the powerful vested interests, in whose interest the country is actually governed, buy politicians and political parties - to ensure that they can successfuly exploit our nation: and enrich themselves legally at its expense.

Every inimical international agreement,  or pernicious public procurement contract, which the government of Ghana signs, results directly from the fact that those agreements benefit the vested interests that actually control our nation from the shadows - because key politicians and all the major political parties are beholden to them: and are firmly ensconced in their very deep pockets.

There are those who say that a scoundrel like Woyome, for example - who in their view would be in prison by now anywhere else in the world - is still a free man in Ghana, precisely because powerful politicians are beholden to him.

The question such Ghanaians ponder over is: Who else, apart from the wife of  the senior official at the Attorney General's Department, into whose bank account Woyome is said to have deposited GHc 400,000, is a beneficiary of Woyome's munificence? Food for thought.

Let us also not forget that former President Rawlings has persistently complained about Woyome receiving and keeping money apparently donated to the former president from overseas.

Why have the authorities not arrested, prosecuted and jailed Woyome for that alleged defrauding of foreign donors - by allegedly using the name of Rawlings, to solicit for philanthropic cash donations, for the benefit of the former president?

Did the U.S. government not finally nail the infamous gangster, the illusive and slippery Al Capone, by jailing him for tax fraud - when they failed to directly link him to the many contract killings he ordered?

Does Rawlings' allegations against him not present those who now rule our country with the perfect opportunity to arrest, prosecute and finally jail Woyome?

Martin Amidu is a real hero for pursuing Woyome to try and retrieve the GHc51 million wrongfully paid to that infernal chancer, when those in power have failed to do so in vigorous fashion.

Woyome is a walking embodiment of the power of vested interests in Ghana. And as many in Ghana say, a long list of compromised individuals amongst our vampire-elites, will ensure that he gets away with not paying back that GHc51 million. Ever.

So, if they want to see an end to high-level corruption in Ghana, young Ghanaians would be wise to demand that all politicians who seek their votes, should publicly publish their assets, and those  of their spouses, before the November elections: and undertake to do so again before the November 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Young Ghanaians must also insist that political parties that seek their support, should publicly publish all their sources of funding - and the precise amounts donated by each of those sources.

It is the only effective way they can demand and get politicians and political parties to take the necessary steps towards ending high-level corruption in Ghana.

That, not the mere passage of the Right to Information Bill, by Parliament, "will make corruption run away" -  to quote Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the running mate of the NPP's presidential candidate, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo.

Bawumia, an otherwise decent gentleman, was being disingenuous in saying that the passage of the Right to Information Bill would "make corruption run away." It will not. Not in Ghana.

He was neatly sidestepping the issue of legislating for politicians and their spouses to publicly publish their assets - immediately before and immediately after their tenures in office - as an effective way to fight high-level corruption in Ghana. Nothing beats that as an anti-corruption measure to fight corruption in this country.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that  Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo becomes Ghanas's president, in January 2017.

Will fore-knowledge of the assets owned by his appointees, and their spouses, before assuming office, in 2017, not enable ordinary Ghanaians to judge for themselves, whether or not their salaries and allowances can justify their net worth, as at November 2020, when they again publicly publish their assets before the presidential and parliamentary elections of that year?

The litmus test of the sincerity of politicians seeking power in Ghana, is their willingness to publicly publish their assets and those of their spouses, just before presidential and parliamentary elections. Ditto political parties publicly publishing all their sources of campaign funds.

High-level corruption in Ghana - which is sucking the very lifeblood out of our country - will be drastically reduced only when that happens and becomes a convention in Ghanaian politics.