Government must be bold to prosecute it's own for corruption-FoCAC

Forum for Christians against Corruption, FoFCAC, says reluctance of successive governments to investigate their members for corruption allegations is responsible for the growing canker.

The group wants the next government to appoint an independent state prosecutor to investigate and prosecute alleged corruption offenders.

This is contained in a 12- item action plan the group proposes as part of a national crusade against high incidence of graft in Ghana.

Spokesperson, Rev. Dr. Kojo Osei-Wusuh, says FoFCAC expects whoever leads the country after next week’s election to adopt the proposal for implementation.

“Hundred days is like a honey-moon for the government so we will monitor and start asking questions after that period.”

Areas in the action plan includes vote-buying in elections, passing the right to information bill, review of basic education curricular and the Senior High School admission placement system.

On Right to Information Bill, FoFCAC is worried parliament has failed to pass it for almost a decade now despite the RTI being a critical tool on which civil society can demand accountability from public officials.

FoFCAC believes it would be one of the early tests of the next government’s commitment to fighting corruption.

The group wants WAEC to be pressurized to adopt processes with better transparency and improved security than currently existing practice and also recommended the prosecution of officials cited for complicity in examination question leakages. It also called for review of basic school curricula.

It observes annual SHS placement system and its attendant corrupt ‘protocol’ concept is compelling many ordinary Ghanaian parents to pay huge amount of bribes to secure wards admission.

“Whatever needs to be done must be done to curtail the ordinary Ghanaian parent being compelled to pay huge amount of bribes to secure placement for their wards in schools,” the group said.