Fighting graft: More work needed – Batidam

There is more work to be done in Ghana in order to win the war against corruption, Daniel Batidam, Chairperson of the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption, has said.

According to him, although on daily basis civil society groups and the media make corruption a subject for discussion as a way of throwing more light on it, there is the need to go a step ahead in fighting graft.

Speaking in an interview with Nana Aba Anamoah on State of Affairs on GHOne TV on Monday, 6 February, Mr Batidam, who used to be former President John Mahama’s advisor on corruption, said: “Sometimes, the more corruption is exposed, the more it is perceived to exist, and I have always used the analogy that if we switch off the light in this room and things were going on, people will not know and if you ask them about what is going on in this room they may just say, maybe some bad things are happening but they don’t know how bad. If you switch on the lights that mean there is greater transparency and people can see more, then they begin to say 'is that how bad it is?' but it might just be a paradox of transparency.

“The more open you become, the more people see and the more people begin to think things are bad or worse. But we cannot also run away that with more than many other countries in Africa, Ghana has been able to work on the demand side of accountability; that means the pressure on government, the exposure or perception or rumours of corruption has been so rampant, hardly any day passes in Ghana without a report on corruption and this also feeds into the news reports whether you like it or not.

“But at the end of the day, for me, while these marks are important, I think the more important thing is for us to recognise that there is more work to be done.”