Accra, March 17, GNA - Dr Fareed Arthur, an Anti-Corruption Consultant to the Ghana Anti Corruption Coalition (GACC), has urged public institutions to volunteer to be assessed to help to fight corruption in the country.
He said volunteering to be assessed could help public institutions to identify weakness in their accountability structures and to facilitate improvements in corporate governance, public accountability and transparency.
Dr Arthur was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, at the close of a two-day workshop on Technical Review of a Draft document on Corruption Monitoring Indicators organized by the GACC for stakeholders in Accra.
The workshop enabled participants consider the methodology and strategic options for implementation of the indicators and to allow them to make further inputs and suggestions that would modify the document. Dr Arthur said the proposed indicators, which would be applied in the same way as the African Peer Review Mechanism, would pay greater attention to the need to improve systems, structures and processes as an approach to minimising corruption in the country.
"The intention is to remove the perceived accusatorial stance associated with a lot of the other existing indicators and subsequent defensiveness that follow and to replace it with a genuine concern for institutional strengthening", he added.
Dr Arthur said the participants indicated their support for the methodology, and encouraged the GACC to present the document to the Government and to get the support of all stakeholders in implementing it.
Organisers would hold another stakeholder consultative forum this March 2006 to review the report for approval and that would include a wider selection of stakeholders including the Office of Accountability, the Controller and Accountant - General's Department, the private sector and the Attorney - General's Department. Development partners and selected NGOs would also be invited to constitute a vital focal group in the fight against corruption in the country.