Trans4orm Network Ghana urges youth to collaborate with YAC against corruption

Trans4orm Network, Ghana, has urged the youth to collaborate with "Youth Against Corruption" (YAC) programme in the fight against corruption.

A statement signed by Mr Vincent Azumah, the Founder/Chair, Trans4orm Network, Ghana, and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said the organisation had been monitoring corruption and its related allegations over the last three years and was getting alarmed at how corruption had become a norm and transforming into an accepted culture if drastic measures were not activated to rid it off.

It said a recent research by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) published in November this year, said “corruption in Ghana is believed to be endemic with 91.4 ranking the level of corruption in the country as high”.

The statement said as part of Trans4orm Network’s contribution to rid Ghana of corruption and corrupt leaders at all levels and in support of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s anti-corruption calls, the youth network organisation had launched a campaign called “Youth Against Corruption (YAC)”, in which its members across the country would call on the youth using various platforms, to rise up against corruption to safeguard their future.

The statement said information gathered by the network had shown that the average Ghanaian child was introduced to corruption right at birth, religious and worship places, through education, employment and even at death.

"It is at birth, the unborn baby’s parents will have to pay bribes to secure hospital beds and attention from health officials. People are made to bribe before they meet so called 'men and women of God,” it added.

The statement said: "Some school officials will only accept the child in school after they have been bribed and in most employment situations, the ‘whom you know’ factor also comes to play".

It said the last and most unlikely place one expects to encounter corruption was at the morgue and cemetery.

It said: "Morgue attendants in many cases will not have space for a corpse but will do so after receiving bribes. It is the same at the cemetery".

It noted that Trans4orm Network, Ghana, therefore calls on: "Youth living in Ghana and Ghanaian youth living abroad not to only hold state and government officials accountable, but to also demand from leaders in the family, workplaces, religious and worship places to desist from acts and practices that breed and reward corruption."

It called on President Nana Akufo-Addo to as a matter of urgency speak-out on the issue of corruption allegations that had hit the Pre-mix fuel distribution.

It also appealed to the Government to support the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) across the country and investigate all corruption allegations against its officials and promptly prosecute them to regain some public confidence in Ghana’s anti-corruption institutions. "Politicians and their parties need to stop politicising corruption allegations as they present escape routes for corrupt people.

"We also urge media to continue its important function of informing and educating the public by providing unprejudiced, dispassionate but persistent reportage on corruption and its related issues,” he said.

The statement said: "All anti-corruption CSOs and agencies and their partners need to provide support to youth movements and organisations to champion anti-corruption work."

It said Trans4orm Network, Ghana, “wishes to remind all state institutions, politicians, leaders at all levels of society that as much as 57 per cent of the country’s population is under 25 years old and the total dependency ratio of Ghana’s population is 66.7 per cent according to figures from the United Nations Statistics Division.

It noted that all actions (including corruption) that deprive the youth of reaching their positive potential therefore have dire consequences for the nation now and in the future.

Trans4orm Network, Ghana, is a network of young people and a Rights Based Organisation with a special focus on building the capacity of like-minded young people, non-governmental rights based organizations, CSOs, community groups and other minority and poor people’s movements to demand accountability.

Trans4orm Network, Ghana, works to transform lives through four key and closely linked thematic areas. It is unique, because it does not wait for funding.

Trans4orm Network, Ghana generates its funds in-house to support rights based programmes and works with poor and marginalised minority groups and people to claim their rights and eradicate practices that perpetuate injustices.

Trans4orm Network, Ghana provides capacity building through training, couching, mentoring, scholarships for like-minded young people and organisations to enhance critical thinking and analysis, planning, strategy development and implementation. Through its technical support it is aimed at bringing effectiveness, accountability and sustainable change.