Let’s expose the corrupt "missing middle" – Esi Ansah

We must start naming and shaming the corrupt ‘missing middle’ who facilitate corruption in both public and private sector, but very often fall outside the investigative radar, a Lecturer with Ashesi University has said.

Dr Esi Ansah told an anti-corruption forum organised by pressure group Occupy Ghana on Wednesday that: “One of the most dangerous things is the missing middle.”

“I call them the missing middle because when a scandal breaks right now you’ll hear the names of maybe a few people at the top and then you’ll hear the names of a few scapegoats who will be called out and then might get tried in some kangaroo court and thrown into some place for some short time [but] there’s a missing middle: the bureaucrats, there are people who are working in private enterprise and in Government to make sure things do not go as they should according to the law,” Ansah explained.

According to the Founding partner and CEO of Axis Human Capital ltd, “we need to start naming and shaming them.”

“We have to, otherwise we’ll talk, we’ll make noise, a few public people will pay and buy their way around the issue, you have a few people that will be used as scapegoats and that’s it,” she warned.

In her view, “the middle that facilitates [corruption] – the people who sign the documents, who withhold passing on of documents in the private and public sector – are going to remain invisible, but we have to start calling them out. We have to start exposing them,” she said.

Others who also spoke at the forum are the founder and General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) Dr Mensa Otabil, legal practitioner Ace Ankomah and investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni.