A professor of Sociology and African Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland, Professor Elísio Macamo has called on politicians and public officials in Africa to stop corruption.
He said corruption was a deliberate act of cruelty perpetrated by people in positions of power to deny the citizenry of solutions to socio-economic challenges they face in their respective countries.
“Avoid being cruel to other people. Corruption is not bad because it takes public money; it is bad because the one who engages in it accepts that people will suffer as a result and has no problem with that,’ he said.
Prof. Macamo was speaking yesterday at the opening of a three-day mid-term conference organised in Accra by the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) under the College of Humanities, University of Ghana (UG).
The MIASA is jointly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the UG to serve as a hub for exchange, networking, and collaboration among researchers from Germany, Ghana, and beyond.
Held on the theme “Sustainable governance in a time of global flux: issues, concepts, and future directions,” the conference created the platform for MIASA’s researchers to further explore the subject matter and related topics which they had been researching over the last five years.
To make governance better in Africa, Prof. Macamo said it was important for institutions running the affairs of the respective nations to have the avoidance of cruelty as their preoccupation.
He also advised that the citizenry should be engaged in projects like infrastructure development which might involve relocation of people so that the good intentions were not seen as acts of cruelty.
For him, paying close attention to the ethics and moral implications of governance would help duty bearers to create a just and fair society for everyone.
A Director of MIASA, Dr Grace Diabah said the institute would continue to give prominence to the African perspective in the global academic world through its fellowships and conferences.
“We want to question concepts and provide time and space for discussing new ideas and approaches. Moreover, MIASA encourages intellectual exchange across existing boundaries: between disciplines, between different academic cultures, countries and continents, between established and younger researchers as well as between researchers and practitioners,” she said.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
