Auditor General says it's impossible to eliminate corruption in Ghana

The Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, says it is almost impossible for Ghana to completely eradicate corruption.

According to him, the canker cannot be completely eradicated but can be managed or reduced.

He said corruption permeates every fibre of the Ghanaian society and that makes it very difficult to tackle.

Speaking at a town hall meeting organised by Citi FM and the Media Foundation for West Africa on Tuesday, Mr. Domelovo said “it can never happen” that corruption will be completely eradicated in the country. “Under the directive principles of state policy in our constitution, the state is required to eradicate corruption and abuse of power.

I did some small exercise of checking what is the meaning of eradicating corruption and I saw eliminate entirely and I said in Ghana it can never happen,” he said.

“Some said destroy completely, I said the same thing, it can never happen. I went on and I saw reduce and I said maybe that’s what the constitution meant. As for reducing, we might not be able to do it.”

He said, in order to fight corruption, there is the need to identify what constitutes the canker, as well as educating the public on such issues.

“It is my considered opinion that if you want to eradicate or reduce corruption significantly you need to do a number of things including education. I think we have to identify clearly what constitutes corruption,” the Auditor General said.

He advocated for the country’s laws to be amended to allow individuals to take up prosecution of corruption-related cases.

He said corruption affects the entire society and therefore individuals must be allowed to take on persons found to be involved in the canker.

“I think seriously that we need to privatize or commercialize the prosecution of corruption,” Mr. Domelovo stated.

“It is an offence that affects all of us so we should all have the right to prosecute corrupt practices. This will help check corruption because if I’m aiming at prosecuting you, you will also aim at prosecuting me. So we will be checking each other.”