CHRAJ urges Ghanaians to help in the fight against corruption

Mr Richard Quayson, Deputy Commissioner; Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has urged Ghanaians to holistically join the fight against corruption, “no sitting on the fence, we need to join resources together to fight a common enemy”.

Mr Quayson tagged corruption as a major challenge for all societies even though measures were being put in place to fight it, the menace still persisted in society; “All have individual roles to play to end corruption”.

The CHRAJ Deputy Commissioner stated during a day’s forum to enlighten staff of the Ghana News Agency on the mandate of CHRAJ, National Anti-Corruption Action Plan 2015 -2014 (NACAP) and the Code of Ethics for Public Officers.

The forum, organised by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), was the first in the series of bi-monthly public educational platform being created by the Agency to update the skills of staff on reportage of national issues and also serve as medium to regularly engage strategic stakeholders.

The forum also comes as GNA moves to deepen its engagement with stakeholders, state institutions and civil society organisations as well as create the platform for effective discussion of national issues.

Mr Quayson explained that the vision of CHRAJ was to create a free, equitable society where human rights and human dignity were respected, whereas power was accountable and governance was transparent.

“CHRAJ has a mission to enhance the scale of good governance, democracy, integrity, peace and social development by promoting, protecting and enforcing fundamental human rights and administrative justice for all persons in Ghana,” he said.

Mr Quayson called on Journalists and public officials to guard against conducts that would put them in a position where their private interest would improperly influence the performance of their official duty.

He said Journalists should also guard against accepting gifts that could influence their output at work. If accepting gifts was inevitable, it should be declared to the officials at the work place.

On the type of cases that could be sent to CHRAJ, Mr Quayson mentioned poor or bad service, bias, insensitivity, neglect, disrespect and many others meted out against a member of the public by a public officer.

Mr Kwaku Osei Bonsu, Acting General Manager of the GNA said: “the GNA is thriving on the credibility of its stories and that its reporters could not afford to do anything unethical”.

He further explained that the training workshop was meant to aid them to overcome temptations and avoid pitfalls in the performance of their duties.