Reward appropriate behaviour, punish corrupt officers in public sector – CDS Africa tells govt
The Centre for Democracy and Socio-economic Development (CDS), an independent think tank that recognizes democracy as a critical tenet for development, has said corruption prevention should become a strategic tenet of our Governance system.
To mitigate corruption, CDS said, deterrence is of great essence.
Such a measure would send a strong message to potential wrongdoers about the latent consequences of their misbehaviour and inaction, it added.
In order to fight corruption, CDS Africa suggested to the government that “There is the need for Government to establish a system that rewards appropriate behavior and penalizes corrupt behavior in the public sector.
“All citizens must understand they have a role to play in the fight against corruption. Citizens and public sector workers must immediately report any suspicions of bribery or corruption to mandated agencies and institutions,” a report released by Dr. Frank Bannor and Dr. Abena Boateng, Senior Research & Policy Analyst and Director of Research for CDS Africa respectively, said.
CDS Africa was reacting to the 2022 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) which shows a dire situation as most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), including Ghana failed to make progress in reducing corruption.
The top performers in the region are Seychelles (70), followed by Cabo Verde (60), Botswana (60) and Rwanda (51), whereas Burundi (17), Equatorial Guinea (17), South Sudan (13) and Somalia (12) have the lowest scores, according to the 2022 CPI released today by Transparency International (TI).
In terms of trends, the 2022 CPI reveals that from 2012 to 2022, 25 countries significantly improved their scores.
The SSA region recorded the highest percentage of countries (28% – 7 out of 25); Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Seychelles and Tanzania experiencing significant improvements in their scores. Conversely, 31 countries significantly declined in their scores since 2012. SSA represents 10% (3 out of the 31 countries – Lesotho, Liberia and Mali) of countries with significant declines in their scores.
Ghana with a score of 43, ranked 8 th out of 49 countries in SSA which were included in the index, alongside Benin (43), Senegal (43) and South Africa (43).
Ghana for the 3rd consecutive year, scores 43 out of a possible clean score of 100 and ranks 72 out of 180 countries and territories included in the . This score, reflects a lack of progress in the country’s fight against corruption.
CDS Africa notes that corruption poses great risk to Ghana’s economic development. Economic inequality is made worse by corruption, according to empirical evidence. A one-unit rise in corruption causes a 0.15 to 1.5 percent decline in GDP per capita. Petty corruption, in particular, has an impact on citizens’ perceptions of corruption in a country because it interferes with their daily lives and undermines public trust in democratic processes, government legitimacy, and state institutions.
CDS Africa recognises that, until 2012 the CPI was computed between 0 to 10. A lower value of 0 indicated a high level of corruption while a higher score value indicated a lower level of corruption. However, the story wasn’t any different with this methodology as Ghana’s best score was 4.1 which was recorded in 2010 (see Figure 2 in the attachment).
Similarly, CDS Africa observes that Ghana isn’t doing any better even with a change in the CPI methodology from 2012 till date where countries are now ranked based on a score of 0 to 100. With reference to this approach, a country is deemed very clean as its score increases on the CPI and, highly corrupt with a lower score. Data available from 2012 to 2022 shows that Ghana’s highest score was recorded in 2014, where the country obtained 48 out of 100.
source: 3news
