We need national will to fight corruption - A-G

Accra, June 10, GNA - The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Joe Ghartey, on Tuesday called for national will to fight corruption. He said national commitment was paramount in any anti-corruption strategy because though political will was important, it was but a sub-set of national will.

Mr Ghartey, who took his turn at the meet-the-press series in Accra, said the government had recognized the negative effects of corruption on development and had therefore put in measures to fight it. He mentioned the domestic preventive, the domestic curative and international strategies as a comprehensive strategy adopted by government to curb the social menace.

The Minister said early warning system of mechanisms and institutions that enabled early detection was also very important in a preventive anti-corruption system.

"It is a fact of life that corruption can be prosecuted only after the facts are available, and prosecutions are time-consuming, costly, uncertain and can only be brought when evidence of corrupt conduct is available," he added.

Mr. Patrick Nomo, Director-General, Internal Audit Agency, said the focus of the agency, since its inception, had been to build a professional internal auditing system in the public service to ensure that fraudulent and corrupt practices were deterred or prevented as much as possible.

"If they occur there are clear procedures for identifying and reporting fraud and corrupt practices for necessary actions. In all these, we are always careful to protect the identity of internal audit staff whose work results in identification of fraud and corrupt practices."

He said the agency believed that the national will would be better served that way than placing internal audit in a reactive mode chasing documents, fraudsters and corrupt officials after they had committed the crime.

"We believe continuous improvements in deterrent and preventive systems coupled with timely detection and prosecution is the sure way to win the fight against fraud and corruption."

Mr Nomo said the Agency had made substantial progress in gaining root in the public service of Ghana and although those systems would not necessarily eliminate all appearances of fraud and corruption, they would go a long way to minimize them and give a clear signal to potential perpetrators.

Mr Agyenim Boateng Adjei, Chief Executive, Public Procurement Authority, said 80 per cent of national tax revenue went into public procurement indicating government's commitment in providing social amenities.

He said the Procurement Act was a form of preventive mechanism that helped check corruption and that it had helped abolish sole sourcing in acquiring national assets.

Mr Christian Sotti, Controller and Accountant General, said the checks and balances in the operation of the Department had been improved, leading to the arrest and prosecution of some 13 workers. He said the Financial Administration Act, which had been adapted into the Public Sector Account, was also helping to address corrupt practices.