Fighting corruption: Institutions should be pro-active

Ghanaians woke up Monday morning, to be hit in the face, by the revelation that through various acts of alleged malfeasance perpetrated at the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, the state has lost millions of Ghana cedis.

The revelation was contained in an audit report on the management of funds at the ministry for the period October, 2006 to December 2008.

The Ghanaian Times does not want to go into the scale of the rot as painted by the audit report.

In fact, from the way things are going Ghanaians should expect more of such reports in the coming days, weeks and months. It is an annual ritual.

We are, however, seriously concerned about the way institutions charged by the state to protect state resources and the national interest go about their duties.

It is, a fact, that corruption is a canker which is difficult to destroy, given the human nature.

It permeates every fabric of the society, not only in Ghana, but also in most developed countries.

But the prevalence, of such malpractices, could be checked or minimized depending on how the relevant state institutions go about their tasks.

In this particular instance, we are tempted to believe the Auditor-General's Department was not pro-active.

Article 187 clause 5 of the 1992 Constitution, clearly states that “the Auditor-General shall WITHIN SIX MONTHS after the end of the immediately proceeding financial year to which each of the accounts mentioned in Clause (2) of this article relates (Public Accounts), submit his report to Parliament and shall in that report draw attention to any irregularities in the accounts audited and to any other matter which in his opinion ought to be brought to the attention of Parliament”.

So if the constitution is talking about six months within which the Auditor-General should act why the two-year period (October 2006 – December 2008)?

We think if the Audit Service had exercised some level of responsibility in its duties, it would not have had cause to express misgivings at the lack of vigilance and the laxed supervision over the ISD as well as other transactions by the management.

As already stated, the Times, is sure that perhaps worse things might have happened in other public institutions.

But need we wait for the people of this country to be short-changed by unscrupulous civil and public servants before we act?
Certainly not.

The Audit Service, we suggest should go beyond its traditional and usual way of doing things, and bring in some innovations that would enhance its job.

For instance, regular and unannounced checks and visits to areas under its jurisdiction could help minimize the frequency and scale of malfeasance as we are witnessing now.

The government should also strengthen the service with the required qualified staff and appropriate tools to enable it to perform efficiently.

Credit: Times