Transparency International did shoddy work, says GFA spokesperson

The Ghana Football Association has reacted to Transparency International’s report in which the association scored zero marks on its four main pillars of transparency and accountability.

The report said the GFA was a high-risk corruption association and also lacks transparency.

The four pillars they looked at were, financial accounts, existence of code of conduct, annual activity reports and the existence of organizational charters and statutes.

Their methodology for this research was to go on the various association’s websites and if the four pillars listed are not found there then it means there could be corruption in the affairs of the association.

According to their report only fourteen out of FIFA’s 209 football associations – Canada, Denmark, England, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden – published the minimum amount of information necessary to let people know what they do, how they spend their money and what values they believe in.

But the Ghana Football Association is unmoved by the report by Transparency international. For them, the work done by the renowned anti-corruption body is half-baked.

“Transparency International has an office in Ghana, just some ten days ago we held our congress, submitted our financial report, activity report, our code of conduct is a public document and it is on sale and also available at the GFA library.”

“Honestly I don’t put much on this report but it is a worry for us that they did not do a thorough job, for instance if you checked on our website and you did not see it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist."

“So if you use this standard to judge it, you have done a shoddy job."

Asked what the GFA’s official position on this he noted: “We are looking through the report and we will send a response."

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Story by Ghana/Joy Sports/Benedict Owusu