News:
November 18, 2013
Government is to launch an online complaints platform in the coming weeks to encourage people to report incidence of corruption among public officials.
This forms part of president John Mahama’s action plan to have firsthand information from the public in his bid to stem the incidences of corruption.
Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mahama Ayariga disclosed this Monday, on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show.
He said, the platform will provide members of the public with “the opportunity to report cases where they believe that there was impropriety and smack of some corrupt practice”.
President John Mahama on Friday outlined a number of measures to fight in the country at a meeting with anti-corruption groups, Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) as well as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
Key among the actions, is the directive to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to submit to cabinet for scrutiny their justification for seeking to apply for sole sourcing in the procurement of goods and the award of contracts before such applications are submitted to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).
Mr. Ayariga said, the president was keen on fighting corruption hence the decision to set timelines for all the directives he issued last week.
“Given the seriousness the president attaches to the issues that have been raised I can assure you that any agency that is responsible for implement any part of this will make sure that by the deadline, they report favourably on how far they have [gone]”.
The Minister entreated civil society groups and the media, to follow the actions with keen interest in order to update the public of developments on government’s fight against corruption.
Over-concentration
In a related development, Chief Policy Analyst at the Ghana Institute of Public Policy Options (GIPPO), Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby says the directive to MDAs to submit contracts to cabinet for scrutiny, could lead to “over-centralisation of cabinet”.
“That cannot stop the influence of politicians, so long as the whole thing [contract] is shrouded in secrecy,” Dr. Wereko-Brobby stated.
He suggested the immediate passage of the Right To Information (RTI) bill, to promote the transparency that the president is seeking to achieve in his government. He maintained: “transparency cannot work without the RTI.
Marginalising the PPA
Head of Policy Monitoring and Evaluation at the Presidency, Dr. Tony Aidoo, however, disagreed with Dr. Wereko-Brobby that the plan to have cabinet to review all contracts sole sourced would amount to marginalisation of the MDAs.
According to him, the decision is to “ensure nothing is done on the blind side of the president.”
“That [decision] does not make PPA redundant; all that it is there to do is to ensure …all kinds of dubious activities does not happen,” Dr. Aidoo stressed.
He also suggested the scientific study of corruption through the creation of a database, which will identify the different types of corruption.
This he said will lead to the creation a systematic way to deal with the canker than the current sensational manner in which corruption is being tackled.
Myjoyonline.com