Politics

Politicians urged not to monitise politics

Professor Kwasi Prempeh, the Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), has cautioned against the current trend in fighting corruption in the country by politicians which is a catalyst for an economic break down.

According to him, the ‘NIMBY’ phenomenon, better translated as the ‘not in my back yard’ trend by politicians in addressing the rising spate of corrupt activities is rather fueling the ‘mess’.

Speaking at the STAR Ghana anti-corruption learning event, Prof. Prempeh posited that “monetisation of politics by politicians is almost becoming institutionalised, a trend which fuels corrupt acts, we also see the monetisation of politics is becoming almost institutionalised as we see the institutionalised use of patronage as payback time for campaign financiers.

His take was on the back of issues relating to successes and emerging practices in the fight against corruption under the theme: ‘Civil Society and the fight against corruption; successes, emerging lessons and good practices.’

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“The fight against corruption has come face to face with the phenomenon known elsewhere as ‘NIMBY’, not in my backyard, apparently, it’s okay to take the fight against corruption to one’s rivals but not quite okay in one’s backyard.

“Due to monetisation of politics, politicians find it difficult to pay back their sponsors or recoup their investments without resorting to one corrupt activity or the other, in order to fight corruption to an appreciable extent, the citizenry needs to adopt the lifestyle audits, which is essentially to probe the lifestyles of government officials whether it commensurate with their known income stream.

“The phenomenon is not new because it is widely practiced and upheld in most countries in Africa,” Prof Prempeh indicated. -ghanaweb.com

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