Govt exploring legitimate means to fight corruption

Mr Joseph Henry Mensah, Senior Minister and Chairman of Government's Economic Team, said on Saturday that the government was exploring all legitimate means to detect and deal with any form of corruption that would come to its notice.

"The time has come for us to put in place additional preventive measures and to impose appropriate drastic sanctions in order to combat this cancer which unchecked could consume the very fabric of our national well-being."

Mr Mensah was speaking at the opening of the 53rd New Year School at the University of Ghana, Legon, organised by the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) of the University. More than 300 participants from all the regions are attending.

The Senior Minister who spent about an hour discussing the theme of the weeklong School, "Good governance and sustainable development", said bribery and corruption could undermine laudable national goals.

"For you in the body politic the cost of the weakness and selfishness of corruption among public officials can partially be calculated when we consider the number of people who are denied rightful access to basic social services.

"How can anyone justify bribery and corruption among public officials, who at least have steady jobs, when the majority of our hardworking people, farmers and fishermen who have to survive on one dollar a day cannot and do not have the opportunity to collect bribes as a means of making ends meet?"

This comment attracted cheers from the audience which included Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, Minister of Education, Professor Ivan Addae-Mensah, Vice-Chancellor of the University and Professor Kobina Asiedu, Director of the IAE.

Mr Mensah expressed dissatisfaction with attempts by scholars to rationalise bribery and corruption by attributing the practice to low salaries and high cost of living.

"Some have even suggested, even though humourously, that zero tolerance should be revived upward to five per cent for corruption."

He said the call to good governance, transparency and accountability must cut across and permeate every facet of the daily lives of the people. Mr Mensah said good governance was an essential component of the Golden Age of Business, which should not be the sole responsibility of those in political leadership but "an essential domestic common sense requirement for all".

He said government could not by itself create the Golden Age of Business it had promised, but could provide the environment in which business could thrive on law and order, political stability and sound management of economic affairs.

Mr Mensah commended the IAE for striving to maintain the uniqueness of the school's tradition as a public educational forum, which is one of the original pillars of the country's democracy.

He asked the participants to pursue a personal policy of life-long learning so that they would not be excluded from the benefits of science and technology.