The New Corruption Tactics To Swerve Anas

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railway”. In our case, they steal the freight car, the railway and the land as well.

Over the past years, corruption has been one of the topical issues discussed in Ghana and Anas Aremeyaw Anas has been instrumental in the fight against it. His secret camera has aided him to capture corrupt officials in the act of taking bribes in the course of their duties. Despite the public ridicule and chastisement of officials for this god-awful act, it seems most officials just can’t live without taking bribes. To escape being caught on Anas' camera, the new tactics adopted by officials in taking of money as bribes is the use of mobile money transfer. These days when you are asked to pay money for a favor or as a bribe, you are given a mobile money number to do a deposit of the bribe. This is done to escape Anas' camera, in which corrupt officials are caught counting or receiving money as bribe.

According to IMANI Ghana, Ghana loses $3 billion to corruption annually and this figure was based on a report from the Auditor- General's office. In 2014, the government of Ghana secured $298m loan from the Brazilian government for the construction of the Kejetia market. The Nkrumah circle interchange costs $100m and the money was secured through an export credit agreement between Ghana and PNB Paribas of Paris. The Bui dam project cost $622m and out of this total cost, the China Exim Bank gave a concessional loan of $270m at 2% interest rate and a commercial loan of $292m. The total cost of all these major projects doesn’t amount to half of the money that was estimated as being plunged into corruption by the Auditor-General's Office, which means if corruption was curbed, Ghana could have done all these projects without going for a loan.

According to the African Union, more than $148bn is lost to corruption in Africa every year. Interestingly, the $200m African Union headquarters was built and donated to the 55 African countries by China. Yet $148b goes into our corruption sector. 75% of the world poorest countries are said to be in Africa. The net worth of the world's richest man is $90b which means African corruption sector is richer than the world's richest man. Corruption is a throat cutting act; it cuts the throat of the poor.

This devilish act has a grave impact on Ghana and Africa at large. The effects are deadly to both the living and the unborn. It is an injurious act and if not combated wholistically, it may burry our country in the grave of poverty. Our corrupt officials can adopt all ill tactics to swerve the ace Journalist Anas, but they should always remember that the evil seeds men sow, shall always germinate from their toes and when the wind blows, the anus of chicken will be exposed, the wind shall certainly blow one day. God save Ghana and Africa!

“We are not children of a lesser god”
Ntenhene Felix
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