Anti-corruption group calls for investigations into document processing

The Citizen’s Movement Against Corruption (CMaC) has called on government to institute an under-cover commission to investigate documentation processing in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The Movement said in most of the state agencies, before an individual documentation is processed, demands are placed on the individual seeking the service and that the behaviour has now become a norm and a culture.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency at the launch of the Movement, Mr Edem Senanu of CMaC, said it is clear that when citizens and businesses, especially in the informal sector, who want to go about their work are constantly harassed to pay bribes for services sometimes un-rendered.

He said CMaC is a movement rallying support and unifying all efforts of the citizenry to fight corruption.

“It is an alliance between civil society, its organizations and private sector with some support from STAR Ghana to address corruption and its negative impact on national development” he added.

The objective of the Movement is to strengthen the private sector and civil society collaboration against corruption, create public awareness on the effects of corruption on national development and influence government to step up its response to corruption issues in the country.

He said as citizens, there was the need to ensure that there are clear standards for good governance, adding that, corruption increases the cost of doing business and it behooves on the private sector to adopt a no corruption code of ethics and commit themselves to it.

Mr Senanu said citizens are concerned about various contracting and procurement processes that government have engaged and have not provided the citizenry with the value for money.

He said the Movement is developing a summary of key national corruption cases within the fourth republic dispensation to track the investigation, prosecution and conclusions of these cases as well as new ones and to report findings in the national dailies.