The Ketu North Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Prosper Afealete has admonished duty bearers to be transparent in the discharge of their duties to enable them to be accountable to the citizenry.
“Probity, transparency and accountability will be a mirage if conscious efforts are not made to hold duty bearers accountable for their stewardship because fighting corruption is the collective responsibility of every citizen to ensure that duty bearers are held accountable for their actions,” he stressed.
Mr Afealete made the admonition at an outreach programme at Gbedekope, a suburb of Penyi in the Ketu North District to educate the people on practices that siphoned state resources thereby retarding the development of the country.
It was organised by the NCCE and sponsored by the European Union which formed part of the commission’s Anti-Corruption, Rule of Law, and Accountability Programme (ARAP) that sought to promote good governance by reducing corruption and towards improving compliance with the rule of law.
Mr Afealete noted that acts of corruption were complex and the people who engage in it were secretive that it made it difficult to be determined and was the responsibility of every Ghanaian to unite and nib the canker in the bud for the good of the country.
He assured that “the relentless fight against corruption is still possible”, and underscored “the need for all to support the crusade against it, if corruption is taught in educational institutions and the pupils and students exposed to its negative impact on the society, they will serve as a check on their own families and will not be hesitant to fight their own parents when they indulge in the practice.
“This will help inculcate in the youth the spirit of patriotism and abhorrence for wrongdoing to instill high sense of nationalism and responsibility in their character, corruption has become an endemic canker that has permeated every facet of the Ghanaian fabric which demands a holistic approach of changing the mindset and attitudes starting from the children in schools across the country,” Mr Afealete suggested.
FROM LAWRENCE VOMAFA-AKPALU, KETA
