GhanaPoliticsOnline.Com
Tour de guet” (Watchtower) Anti-Corruption Report, published in February 2018, provided a clear picture of the situation in Africa regarding corruption in each country.
The report aimed at setting up a framework to facilitate the exchange of good practices, identify the continent’s trend, gather comparable data on all countries and stimulate peer learning and further compliance with international commitments as well as preparing the ground for future Africa policy initiatives in the area of anti-corruption.
The group’s latest report ranked the Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, among the most corrupt leaders in Africa.
The report shows that the nature and scope of corruption varies from one country to another and that the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies is quite different.
It also showed how corruption is a phenomenon affecting citizens in African states, and how continued action is needed across the continent. The report says the Akufo-Addo administration came to power pledging to eradicate corruption in Ghana, but most of his close aides, appointees and some relatives of the President including his daughters and nephews are tied to corruption and corrupt acts. Nothing makes Ghanaians more furious with their leader than corruption and nepotism. According to the report, the President per his reactions to corruption allegations against his appointees, is encouraging a cult of corrupt aides and appointees while he hides in a cocoon of not being in the know. The report states that, the idea that the current President can eradicate corruption as he promised during his campaign is fast fading into oblivion. The report said, African leaders caricature on their so called anti-corruption advances the idea that corruption is Africans way of life and is thus a natural phenomenon. The report revealed that a brother, nephews and business friends of the President have taken over the country’s oil sector and have started initiating fraudulent deals in Russia, the middle east and some African countries in collaboration with a company owned by Gabon’s former oil minister Etienne Dieudonne Ngoubuo who is currently languishing in jail over allegations of embezzling public fund. The former minister was among the Npp’s external financiers. The report mentions businesses owned by relatives of the Ghanaian leader in Equatorial Guinea, Chad and South Sudan. According to the report, corrupt deals by officials at the Presidency and bureaucracy have made Ghana unattractive to investors.
The report also captures activities of Mamman Daura, who is Buhari’s nephew. The man described by the report as the new “corruption play boy in Africa”. The report reveals that Daura was the source of that famous speech delivered by the Nigerian leader in which the words of Barack Obama, were plagiarized. The reports says, Daura is the defacto oil minister in Nigeria and has hijacked the presidency. The report also captures how Daura and Abba Kyari used their positions in government to suppress information gathered about the $25 billion oil deal in Nigeria.
Other African leaders whose activities were captured in the report include Idris Derby, Paul Biya, Nguema among others.
Meanwhile Ghana dropped by 3 points in the corruption perception index by Transparency International to land on 40 and dropped in the ranking from 70 to 81st. Ghana was ranked seventh in Africa in the Corruption Perception index for 2015 which was released by Ghana Integrity Initiative, the local chapter of Transparency International. In the 2015 report, Ghana scored 47 out of 100 and ranked 56 out of 168 countries. In the 2015 report, Ghana slided back by one percentage point from the 48 points scored in 2014 but was better than its performance in 2012 when it scored 45 and 46 for 2013. In the 2015 report, Ghana’s score and ranking showed that the country performed much better than several other African countries including South Africa, Senegal and Tunisia. It also captured that although Ghana in 2015 scored lower than six African countries, Ghana scored higher than all the rest of the African countries included in the report.
