Dr Kwame Asah-Asante, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, has affirmed the failure of the state to develop effective and efficient ways of dealing with corruption is the cause of the latest corrupt discoveries.
He contended that over the years, the country had only been paying lip-service to the fight against corruption without putting actual measures in place and the reason for the latest Auditor General’s Report, involving the payments of monies to ghost workers and other financial irregularities.
“It is nothing but weak capacity of the state that is all so when we talk about capacity of the state, we are looking at how the state is able to use its resources to manage issues efficiently and effectively for a better life for its people,” Dr Asah-Asante asserted.
His comments are in reaction to the latest Auditor General’s report which detailed some financial malfeasances involving state institutions and functionaries and one of such revelations is the case of judges who have bought vehicles below the actual cost of the said vehicles.
Dr Asah-Asante berated those who were responsible to protect the public purse but shirked their responsibility for corruption to permeate the fabric of the Ghanaian society and insisted that the recent revelations of corruption by the Auditor-General was due to the state’s ‘weak capacity’.
He wondered how a ghost could be paid which had become consistent despite efforts by the state to remove them but in no time return without authorities finding lasting solution to the canker and further quizzed whether the citizenry were prepared to deal with the menace head on.
“I am not sure because if we want to address it, we will find better ways of addressing it than ad-hoc measures and lip-service we pay to some of such issues and I will not blame the judges involved because the practice whereby government auctions uncleared vehicles at the port, for cheaper prices is the main issue which must be dealt with,” Dr Asah-Asante decried.
