'Churches, politicians make civil, public servants corrupt'

Churches and Politicians have an overbearing influence on civil and public servants as far as corruption is concerned, the Spokesperson for the Progressive Public Servants Association, Mr Japhet Baidoo has told Morning Starr host Kafui Dey.

“If you’re a Church of Pentecost member and everybody knows that…you are the head of Christ, and you employ people, and [there are] many of the youth in the Church, the Pastor will just tell you: ‘These two boys are very hard working. They have completed school, can’t you fix them somewhere?’” Mr Baidoo said.

According to him, civil and public service workers bend the rules in their Offices to please their Churches when pressure is brought to bear on them.

As far as political pressure is concerned, Mr Baidoo said people belonging to, or supporting a political party in power use that affiliation to peddle influence or win patronage for employment favours.

His revelations come on the heels of recent revelations of widespread corruption by the Auditor General (AG), at various state institutions including the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), the Energy Ministry, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Electoral Commission (EC).

The AG’s 2013 report recently presented to Parliament indicted the EC for its failure to account for over Ghc1.7 million.

The report said the Commission cannot provide supporting documents for the expenses on allowances and other transactions.

It said: “The Commission made a total of over Ghc1.6 million between January 4 and May 2013 for allowances. But this expenditure didn't have any supporting documents.”

“The EC also made a total payment of over Ghc1.3 million on 50 vouchers between June 2011 and May 30, 2013. Supporting documents were made but [it covered] just a little over Ghc1.2million, with a difference of over Ghc150,000 not accounted for,” the report noted.

The Auditor General has, therefore directed the Commission to immediately provide documents to back those expenses or refund the rest of the monies that cannot be accounted for to the state.

Similarly the Energy ministry was indicted by the report to have spent Ghc5, 584,508 million meant for rural electrification projects on 38 luxury vehicles.

The project was to extend electricity to 1,200 communities under the Multi-Donor Budgetary Support Programme between 2010 and 2012.

The report revealed that the ministry also bought two heavy duty photocopiers for $33,226.40 (Ghc106,324), four desktop computers with accessories for $10,522.28(Ghc33,670), and three laptop computers with accessories for $8,008.71 (Ghc25,627.87). The Energy Ministry has, however come out to clarify that the contract for the vehicles was negotiated by the Kufuor administration before leaving Office.

The report also revealed that SADA blew Ghc2 million on unapproved foreign trips to Birmingham, Berlin and Turkey in 2013.

Also uncovered was a significant expenditure on consultancy services within the same period which cost over Ghc620,000.