Faith based organisations want “protocol list” stop

The leaders of faith based organisation have urged government to stop the perennial practice of sending names of children belonging to political party supporters, and ethnic groups as “protocol list” to public schools for admission.

They explained that the practice was bad as it gave room for the turnout of “half-baked products” from the institutions, resulting in the poor performance at public offices.

Besides, it also has the tendency of favouring unqualified students to gain admission to tertiary institutions of higher learning to the neglect of qualified students getting wasted by the practice.

The leaders drawn from various faith based organisations in the Upper West Region raised the concern at a forum organised in Wa by the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to discuss the 10 year National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) document.

They noted that the practice was not only limited to admissions but was also patronized in the appointment of public officers and the employment of workers.

The members also appealed to government to return all schools which were formerly belonging to churches back to them.

According to them, the churches no longer have control over schools which were formerly established by them and, as a result, moral code and ethics had broken down among students in those schools.

They explained that the absence of the teaching of moral codes, ethics and civic education in Ghana’s schools, had made students to lose those essential values, hence the massive corrupt practices in recent times.

The members said if those values were not taught in Ghanaian schools and institutions, issues of integrity, patriotism, and love for one nation, would not be realised in the Ghanaian society.

“How can the churches impact values in children when schools that they had established to inculcate such values that would help in the moral upbringing of the children are taken away from their control,” the leaders asked.

A member said: “When I hear people are fighting corruption, I laughed. Corruption is in the blood of Ghanaians because moral and civic educations are not instilled in the youth any longer”.

The leaders identified the Ghana Audit Service as one organisation that could expose corruption in Ghana, but expressed disappointment that some personnel of the Service also shield public corruption.

They urged the Service to do it work as mandated by them without any favour to unearth corruption at public workplaces to save money for development.

The NACAP document has four strategic objectives, namely: to build public capacity, condemn and fight corruption; institutionalize efficiency in Ghana, and integrity, accountability and transparency.

Other areas to be considered are to engage individuals, media and civil society in reporting and combating corruption and to conduct effective investigations and prosecution of corrupt conduct.