Without corruption, the ‘edifice we call enterprise Ghana will collapse’ – Kwesi Aning

Professor Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, the Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has described corruption as a business which binds the society in Ghana.

According to him, without corruption, the “edifice we call enterprise Ghana will collapse”.

Speaking on Joy News’ Newsfile, monitored by GhanaWeb, Prof. Aning stated that the types of corruption in the Ghanaian society is due to how appealing it is to the morals of people and how the laws of the country are applied haphazardly.

He stated, “Corruption is [a] multi-billion-dollar business”.

Prof. Kwesi Aning further indicated that scenarios linking to corruption [have] not been identified properly because the subject of corruption is misunderstood.

He explained that until corruption is accepted as a social canker, it would be seen always that the corrupt practices under reference are minimal.

“…we’re not looking at the networks that underpin it, we’re not looking at the levels of collusion, we’re not looking at the manner in which the rules that ought to apply first in identifying, [and] investigating, and restitutions are being applied well.

“Until we understand this as acceptability, that corruption is a canker and it’s contributing to our inability to live proper lives, then the little [corrupt acts] that people are engaged with, we’d say that this is small corruption. [But] corruption is corruption,” Prof. Aning stressed.

To Prof. Aning, “corruption cuts across religious beliefs, political affiliation, old school networks, ethnicity” adding that public perception plays a critical role and until we begin to connect the dots and find all the missing links, corrupt practices will still continue.

Professor Aning was taking part in an annual review of events.