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Corruption In
Ghana Is Like Air, Dust And Garbage – It’s Everywhere!
Frank S. Debrah
Mark Twain once said “there is no distinctly American
criminal class, except Congress”. In my beloved Ghana, it
may not be farfetched to suggest that there is no distinctly
Ghanaian criminal class, except those entrusted with power.
Whether it is orchestrated by the politician or the
policeman, the bureaucrat or the businessman, the urge to
extort bribes for service or disservice rendered to the
Ghanaian public is perhaps the most obvious growth-killing
incentive that the Ghanaian economy faces.
Last week, Transparency International – the global civil
society organization leading the campaign against corruption
– lowered Ghana’s mark by four points relative to the
previous year. The Mills administration claimed to be
‘saddened’ by the nation’s latest score and so the
administration responded by citing several global and
domestic anti-corruption initiatives that they have signed
on to in order to perhaps justify why they believed the new
rating is undeserved.
This week, we are yet again being reminded of the canker of
corruption in our vital national institutions with the
survey released by the Ghana Integrity Initiative which
identified the Ghana Police Service as one perceived to be
the most corrupt institution in Ghana. Following closely in
their footstep is the Customs Division of Ghana Revenue
Authority, the Public Service, Religious Bodies, the media
and other non-governmental organizations (NGO’s). These are
all institutions of vital importance to our national
wellbeing and one with which so much power has been
entrusted to advance the elusive quest for socio-economic
development in Ghana.
While some Ghanaians have claimed that the corruption
perception index is meaningless and of little value to
development, this article takes a different position. It
does so based on the simple premise that in the 21st
century, perception is reality.
Nowhere is this aphorism truer than Africa in general and
Ghana in particular. One may not necessarily need a
scientific research enterprise like Transparency
International or the Ghana Integrity Initiative to establish
the prevalence of corruption (actual or perceived) in Ghana.
Corruption is a common and everyday experience for most
ordinary citizens across the land and the people are never
shy to voice their disgust about the issue even if they are
powerless to do much about it. Whenever I visit Ghana, I
make it a point to ask almost every person that I engage
with about what they think are the biggest problems facing
the country. Incidentally, corruption is almost always in
the top tier irrespective of where the opinion is coming
from – judges, academics, taxi drivers, janitors, market
women, students, the pharmacist or the business tycoon.
Institutions like the Ghana Police Service exist principally
to investigate, arrest and deter criminal activity like
corruption. Ironically, it is this very institution that is
often accused of spearheading corruption in the country.
On
our roads every single day, the Trotro and Taxi drivers have
to play a constant cat and mouse game with elements of the
corrupt Ghana police. The drivers are the mouse and the
police are the cats. Simple acts like driving a vehicle
through a police checkpoint is like having a sign on your
forehead that says “I’m a goldmine, please extort bribes
from me”. Requiring drivers to pay for a passage on the
highway or private business women to pay bribes in order to
facilitate movement of goods and services is a direct tax on
production, and so we economists will expect it to lower
growth.
On
the other hand, if the perception of the ordinary citizen
who wishes to establish a legitimate business is that he
will be required to pay off several bureaucrats in order to
get a business licence, then the incentive to establish that
business is severely diminished. Moreover, if parents have
to deliver a thick brown envelope in order to get their
precious child into an institution of higher learning, then
only the privileged few will benefit from better education.
Ultimately, this is a serious national problem and the end
result is often predictable. The vast number of the urban
unemployed begin to seek redemption from God, government or
both; viewing government as the only instrument for job
creation and God as a propagator of manna from heaven. So,
rather than individuals creating jobs, everybody is
searching for non-existent jobs or waiting for politicians
to wave their magic wand of job creation. Where will our
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs come from? Where will our Albert
Einsteins and Isaac Newtons come from if we have endless
people chasing after buses claiming to be prophets, bishops,
messiahs etc?
Education is suppose to provide the path to analytical
thinking but most of our schools are producing students who
can only read and recite – ‘chew and pour’, they call it!
Make no mistake: corruption occurs in every country and all
regions – African, Asian, European, Middle Eastern or North
American. Government officials everywhere are no better than
highway men on the road to growth. However, it is often the
severity and the nature of corruption - decentralized
corruption – the kind that ordinary people witness day in
and day out in Ghana that is so detrimental to economic
growth and poverty alleviation. Available data from the
International Credit Risk Guide have on several occasions
shown an inverse relationship between corruption and growth
and between corruption and investment ratio to GDP. Most
importantly, not only does corruption have a negative effect
on growth, it also worsens other policies that affect long
term growth. For example, diversion of state funds into
private bank accounts and misallocation of funds through
kickbacks all have the tendency to worsen the budget deficit
and the overall national debt.
Without slipping into technicalities, it must simply be
stated that no serious investor will want to invest
favourably in a corrupt economy no matter how many
investment attraction trips the president takes. As a
nation, we will not create wealth if the people entrusted
with leadership positions exploit the economy to benefit
themselves, or if the police rather than arresting drug
traffickers allow themselves to be bought off like common
criminals. No foreign investor will want to enter a market
where the port authority is rotten to the core. It is the
fundamental truth that in this day and age, capable,
reliable and transparent institutions are the only proven
key to the success that we have been searching for in the
last fifty years.
As a country, we are very good at paying lip service to
issues and turning everything into a political or tribal
football but corruption is one of those issues that we
cannot afford to sweep under the carpet. For it is not an
NDC, NPP or CPP issue, neither is it Akan, Ewe, Ga, or
Dagomba issue, it is a Ghana issue! Therefore, we must join
together and find innovative ways of reducing corruption
significantly in our country. As citizens, we must
continuously demand accountability and competence from those
who aspire to positions of leadership. We must not waiver in
our commitment to keep drawing our leaders’ feet closer to
the fire and expect them to be better managers of the
country than their predecessors. After all, most of our
problems have been created by Ghanaians therefore they can
be solved by Ghanaians!
Frank S. Debrah
Vancouver, Canada
December 11, 2012 |
