Stemming The Hemorrhage

The late President John Evans Mills made screaming headlines when on a tour of the Tema Port he remarked about how within a short time of their being transferred to the port, Collection Customs Officers put up buildings.

The implication of this is that corruption is rife. The President only pointed at a fact but the humorous treatment he attached to the observation accorded it the headline status.

A few days ago, the Customs Division the new nomenclature of the revenue collection division of the Ghana Revenue Agency (GRA) was in the news once more – this time following a necessary action against some senior officers who colluded with importers to cheat the state.

The corruption in the Customs Division has been a feature of the revenue collectors for many years now but to date no effective means of stemming the anomaly has been unfolded.

In the past we heard about various interventions to manage the situation. These have so far yielded no fruit even as the state actors continue to milk the state for their individual benefits.

A few days ago, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia visited the Tema Port and observed rather worryingly how many Ghanaians want to work at the Tema Port. There is nothing attracting many Ghanaians to the Port of Tema other than corruption.

Unless a better means of making things work in the interest of the state, many more officers would be enticed to corruption. The perception among many Ghanaians is that if you want quick money get transferred to the Port of Tema.

Family members would usually find out from their relatives who find work or transferred to the Port of Tema how many cars or how soon they have completed their houses.

Although corruption has eaten deep into our body-politics with hardly any state institution not affected, the story of the Customs Division with particular emphasis on Tema Port is exceptional.

It was a good decision to interdict the officers cited in the corruption activities at the Port especially since they are senior officers.

Corruption should not be entertained under any circumstances and it is in this light that we salute the GRA for taking the action it did.

We ask that a thorough investigation is instituted to establish the real facts, especially others culpable in the malfeasance leading to the loss of the whopping amount of monies to the state serving or out of service.

But for the change in government, the bad nuts could have continued to engage in the corruption game.

We are glad that the companies the senior officers aided to defraud the state would be made to refund the monies which did not come to the state.

We recall painfully how after the expose of Anas Aremeyaw Anas about the corruption at the Tema Port nothing happened to make the graft unattractive.

It is amazing therefore that a few years after the expose and the subsequent visit to the place by the late President, corruption has not witnessed a decline.

If we must be revisiting the subject every other year or so, it is clear that we are not making progress in the war against corruption.