Mr Richard Quayson, Deputy Commissioner; Commission on Human Right Administrative Justice (CHRJ) on Friday noted that corruption has become a way of life in the country and needed to be urgently checked.
He explained that corrupt activities, indiscipline, lawlessness had become a norm and had taken over the high morals in the country; adding that, few people who shunned these were seen as bad persons.
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Mr Quayson, who disclosed this during a day’s forum to enlighten staffs of the Ghana News Agency on the mandate of CHRAJ, National Anti-Corruption Action Plan 2015 -2014 (NACAP) and the Code of Ethics for Public Officers.
The forum, organised by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), served as bi-monthly public educational platform being created by the Agency to update the skills of staffs on reportage of national issues and also serve as medium to regularly engage with strategic stakeholders.
The forum also comes as GNA moves to deepen its engagement with stakeholders, state institutions and civil society organisations as well as create the platform for effective discussion of national issues.
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He explained that NACAP is an initiative designed to offer a framework to effectively mobilise broad public support and resources for anti-corruption activities in a focused and sustained fashioned
The CHRAJ Deputy Commissioner said corruption, which was man-made, had reached the level to which most youth had no hope in the system and were forced to migrate to other countries where they perceived had better systems to slave.
“Everything about morality and integrity has been thrown away. People do wrong things without thinking twice. The very things in other people in other jurisdiction and will be punished severally, when the same is done in Ghana, the fellow will be applauded,” he said.
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“We spend so much money on sanitation and yet, we are being swallowed with filth, the situation in the health and educational sectors are not different. Corruption is killing us…the cost of corruption is now measured in our human lives,” he added.
While likening corruption to waste in human system, he said it needed to be managed and dealt with safely so it does not become threats to the body.
“Many country have been engulfed with corruption but they have been able to effectively deal with the situation. Ghana as the star of Africa have failed the people and the continent. All is not lost because Botswana was one time very corrupt, but they took drastic measures to clean up the canker and it is now one of the prosperous countries in Africa,” he said.
Mr Quayson stated that one major intervention to wean the country of corruption was the renewal of minds and attitude noting that no programme could succeed if people do not make a conscious effort to change.
Mr Kweku Osei Bonsu, GNA Acting General Manager, in an introductory remark explained that the workshop was the first in the series of bi-monthly in-house trainings aimed at helping staff of the Agency to update their reporting in strategic area as well as build partnership with key stakeholders.
“As journalists there are temptation and pitfalls so this opportunity is to help to avoid these challenges,” he said.
Mr Osei Bonsu stated that GNA had a unique role of mobilising the citizens for nation building, economic and social development, national unity and integration.
This it can do by acting as a central news collection agent of the state, gathering news from all regional, districts and even the hard to each areas.