Disclose gifts meant for your offices - CHRAJ

Mr Richard Quayson, the Acting Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), has chastised pubic officers who receive gifts meant for their offices but fail to disclose them or use them as though they were personal gifts.

He was speaking at a meeting with media practitioners in Tamale organized by CHRAJ and the Office of the President on the National Anti- Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) to secure the commitment of the media in the implementation of the NACAP.

The meeting was also to introduce NACAP to the media and to discuss the President’s directives on the implementation of NACAP.

NACAP, developed by the Government in 2012, and adopted by Parliament in July, 2014, is to address the problem of corruption in a more strategic and coordinated manner following intensive consultations at the national, regional and district levels.

Mr Quayson said gifts offered publicly to public officers were meant for the offices of the public officers but not for the personal use of those public officers, adding those public officers who failed to disclose such gifts were engaging in acts of corruption so they could be prosecuted.

He said whiles it was not bad to receive gifts, gifts beyond certain values amounted to bribery, which compelled the takers to offer preferential treatment to those who offered them.

He urged all to avoid corruption and report acts of corruption to the appropriate institutions for action to be taken against the perpetrators.

Mr Charles Ayamdoo, the Director of Anti- Corruption at CHRAJ, said NACAP needed to achieve four strategic objectives within 10 years, which were to build public capacity to condemn and fight corruption; and make its practice a high- risk low- gain activity; to institutionalise efficiency, accountability and transparency in public, private and not – for profit sectors; and to engage individuals, media and civil society organisations to report and combat corruption and to conduct effective investigations and prosecution of corrupt conduct.

Mr Ayamdoo urged the media to be bold in publishing information about corrupt officials and corruption cases, name and shame without compromise, operate in an impartial manner and avoid sensationalising corruption cases.