<<Print>>

WHAT is retarding the economic  progress of this country Today believes  is the lack of political will on the part of our leaders to prosecute some  corrupt officials.

FROM a distance, it seems that the citizenry is concerned about the corruption menace that has engulfed the country.

NOT a day passes without stories of corrupt deals that have been exposed in the media and by one of the security agencies that are mandated by law to forestall such acts. Yet, although the media religiously does its job of exposing such acts on a daily basis, hardly do we hear of the prosecution of officials who have been embroiled in acts of corruption.

INDEED, hardly a day passes without the mention of corruption in the newspapers, and on the airwaves accompanied by hot debates by listeners.

THE Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Ghana Police Service and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), among other institutions and bodies, have all been set up to curb the loot of the public purse.

THESE institutions and bodies have, however, just become at best exposers of the rot that pervades public institutions. But the saddest part of this  is that,  after their exposés all that happens is talk, talk and just mere talk without action.

THIS, to Today, is what has given rise to the high incidence of corruption by public officials who are paid by the taxpayer. They would continue to perpetrate corrupt acts as long as conditions permit them to get away with no more than a reprimand.

THE PAC spends  a great deal of man-hours and resources to interrogate the issue of corruption in certain institutions but no one has as yet been brought to book in the yearly ritual of public hearings.

AND as a result of this canker, the government is not able to make good such statutory payments as the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), School Feeding payments and a host of other such obligations.

GHANA is not a poor country; it is the mismanagement of our resources that has become our bane.

WE urge the government to show proper commitment to fighting corruption, by prosecuting officials who have been implicated in corrupt deals that have only left the country poorer.

AFTER prosecution, such officials who will be found culpable must be made to refund every single pesewa that they have fraudulently taken from the state.

ALL assets that are acquired with the stolen money must also be confiscated. It is time to move the fight against corruption a notch higher from the usual talk, by setting an example.

THAT, Today believes is the only way as a country  we can stem the high incidence of corruption and step up development of the economy to the level that would be appreciated by all as that can help to provide the basic needs of the people.