Ghana can’t eradicate corruption – Auditor General admits

According to him, corruption has permeated every fibre of the Ghanaian society to the extent that it cannot be completely eradicated.

Mr. Domelovo was, however, quick to add that the canker can be managed in order to reduce its prevalence.

“Under the directive principles of state policy in our constitution, the state is required to eradicate corruption and abuse of power. I did some small exercise of checking what is the meaning of eradicating corruption and I saw eliminate entirely and I said in Ghana it can never happen,” he said.

“Some said destroy completely, I said the same thing, it can never happen. I went on and I saw reduce and I said maybe that’s what the constitution meant. As for reducing, we might not be able to do it.”

Auditor General, Daniel Domelovo (Citinewsroom.com) Pulse Ghana

The Auditor General was speaking at a town hall meeting organised by Citi FM and the Media Foundation for West Africa.

He said educating the public on corruption will go a long way to help in fighting the canker in Ghana.

“It is my considered opinion that if you want to eradicate or reduce corruption significantly you need to do a number of things including education. I think we have to identify clearly what constitutes corruption,” Mr. Domelovo opined.

He further advocated for the country’s laws to be amended to allow individuals to take up prosecution of corruption-related cases.

This, he said, could help reduce the prevalence of corruption in the country.

“I think seriously that we need to privatize or commercialize the prosecution of corruption.”

“It is an offence that affects all of us so we should all have the right to prosecute corrupt practices. This will help check corruption because if I’m aiming at prosecuting you, you will also aim at prosecuting me. So we will be checking each other,” the Auditor General added.