In a bid to better understand audit reports of government, agencies and institutions, there has been an urgent requirement for journalists to be trained.
The purpose is to equip them with the requisite tools to aid in holding duty bearers responsible in safeguarding the public purse-a matter which is at the heart of the nation, and foreign donors.
The Ghana Anti Corruption Coalition (GACC),with the sole commitment to protecting the public funds for the benefit of the citizenry, is training journalists to equip them with the skill to better understand and interpret audit reports.
Additionally, GACC is seeking to equip journalists to acquaint themselves with the public financial cycle to identify where reporting obligation lies on institutions to effectively report on them.
Addressing the press at the sidelines of the one-day training, Mrs. Beauty Emefa Narteh, the Executive Secretary,GACC bemoaned the lack of interest for detailed report by the press.
She however underscored the urgent need for political parties to spell out a clear cut ways in their manifestos which aim at fighting corruption in the country.
While stressing, she entreat the parties to outline their manifestos with specific goals, she reiterated the need for the manifestos to be tailored towards addressing corruption issues in every facet of the economy.
This, according to her, will enable her outfit and other interested civil society organization’s to help in tracking to ensure success of their efforts.
The definition of corruption, Madam Emefa Narteh noted falls short of what it entails therefore urging political parties to design specific program tailored towards addressing the canker.
For instance she mentioned issues of bribing, procurement breaches, issues relating to public financial management as corruption but she stressed the need to have what she termed robust definition that aligns with the United Nations convention against corruption prescribes which Ghana happened to be a signatory.
Madam Emefa Narteh stressed, ” Once we have adopted tomcard as our benchmark to domesticate the process in the fight against corruption”.
She underscored the need for gaps to be addressed in the campaign messages of parties in the fight against corruption.
She bemoaned the unnecessary delay in the passing of the “conduct of public officers bill” which she believes it passage would helped in curtailing some excesses of public officers.
Madam Narteh prayed the said bill would not become another campaign promise by politicians but rather anticipates its passage before the closure of the 8th parliament.
Considering the pervasive nature of corruption in the country, there are growing concerns to ensure an effectiveness of the internal audit agencies in a bid for risk management.
It is the hope that when successfully and carefully integrated, it will help in the proper design, implementations and monitoring of internal control in a bid to implement risk mitigating of public funds.
Without this measure put in place, the effort to safeguard the proper utilisation of public funds will amount to zero.
This is because year in year out, the drain on public funds into personal pockets and accounts are becoming one too many.
Much as mitigative measures are developed, civil servants, technocrats continuing devising subtle ways to rob the nation.
Corruption, she decried is depriving the less privilege in the country and worsening the poverty gap.
A participant accounted after a group presentation, “I know there is so much corruption within almost every fabric of the nation, little did I know that the canker was pervasive among civil servants technocrats and politicians in the ministries, agencies and institutions, a matter that ought to be fought head-on”.
“Everyone opportune to be appointed to serve has no other mind apart from how to enrich themselves at the expense of the state”, he added.
The recent workshop organized by the Ghana Anti Corruption Coalition (GACC) strongly advocate for the integration of an effective internal audit agencies to help control the wasteful use of public funds.
She underscored the need to back the work of internal auditors by an of Parliament and that will give them the independence to track irregularities otherwise, the rot will continue.
She noted that before the external auditors identifies any irregularities, the internal auditors would have flagged them.
“Prevention is always better than prosecution as the country spends so much in prosecuting corrupt officials”.
Having engaged the political parties on the issues of corrupti on and how to address it, GACC will monitor the performance of the political parties to ensure proper implementation.
Seth J. Bokpe, an Associate Editor with the Fourth Estate stressed the need for information in reaching the intended goal.
He took journalists through steps to assessing information via the RTI law stating that the process could be hampered however urging journalists to test the potency of the law.
Report by Prosper Kwaku Selassy Agbitor
