The Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has said corruption is a business in Ghana which binds the society.
Prof. Emmanuel Kwesi Aning said without corruption, the “edifice of what we call enterprise Ghana will collapse.”
The security analyst added that the types of corruption people see in society today is due to how appealing it is to the morals of people and how haphazardly the law is applied.
“Corruption is multi-billion dollar business,” he said.
He told the host of JoyNews’ Newsfile, Samson Lardy Anyenini, that the topic of corruption has not been understood and the scenarios linking it haven’t been properly identified.
“…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, investigating and restitutions are being applied well.”
He explained that until society accepts that corruption is a social canker, it would always see the corruptive practices that people commit as minimal.
“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 corruptions that people are engaged with, we’d say that this is small corruption. Corruption is corruption.”
He stressed on the fact that there’s the need to look at collusion at a broader scope and the networks that underpin it.
Prof Aning beliefs, “corruption cuts across religious beliefs, political affiliation, old school networks, ethnicity.”
Public perception, he said, plays a critical role.
He said that until we begin to connect the dots and find all the missing links, corruptive practices will still continue.