The 2012 Presidential Candidate of Ghana’s New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says one of the measures his administration will use in the fight against corruption, when voted into power on December 7, will be to institutionalise, what he calls, the “Anas Principle”, “to create a culture of positive fear to discourage corrupt practices.”
Nana Akufo-Addo said this when he delivered a speech, last Thursday, on the topic, “Why Ghana cannot afford corruption”, at the Great Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The “Anas Principle”, Nana Addo explained, will be aimed at establishing a special squad, within established anti-corruption agencies, “made up of some of our best young talents, who will be well trained and well disciplined,” to keep the fight against corruption alive everywhere in the country.
Nana Addo, who first disclosed this at a meeting with the business community in Houston earlier this year, explained, at the time, that this principle, will infest the disciples of corruption with fear and paranoia “in that you may never know that the person you are giving the bribe to or receiving it from may be an undercover agent.”
Shedding more light on this principle, Nana Addo explained this special anti-corruption squad will be given the licence to root out corruption from every nook and cranny of the Ghanaian public life.
This, according to Nana Addo, was needed so as to remove the hold that corruption has on our institutions and our development.
The NPP flagbearer also promised to introduce stiffer punishments for corruption “to make it a high-risk, low-gain activity and make the theft of state funds more expensive for the criminal;”
Nana Akufo-Addo has been a major campaigner against corruption in the Ghanaian public, despite the desperate attempts of the ruling National Democratic Congress’ attempts to tag him with acts of corruption, which have so far yielded no fruits.
The “Anas principle” is based on the mode of investigation used by one of Africa’s ace investigative journalists, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who through undercover investigations has unearthed acts of corruption in almost every Ghanaian state institution.
Thus far, the ruling National Democratic Congress administration has failed to act on the numerous cases of corruption unearthed by the ace investigator.
Nana Akufo-Addo also proposed other measures to tackle corruption, which include improving governance and management practices in the public sector to eliminate the bad management practices that lead to corruption; and amending the relevant sections of the Criminal and Other Offences Act (1960) Act 29, particularly sections 239-257, to make corruption a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
Also, Nana Addo pledged to support and provide anti-corruption institutions such as the CHRAJ, Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) and the Ghana Police Service with greater financial resources to recruit, train, engage and retain a large number of technical personnel to investigate and fight corruption throughout the country.
Amongst others, the NPP Presidential Candidate, also promised to introduce legislation to improve corruption reporting, investigations and follow-up systems, and “to make it: (a) compulsory for every head of a public sector institution to establish and effectively operate an Anti-Corruption Policy and Unit and (b) a criminal offence for a public official to fail to report corruption.”
By: Fiifi Arhin, 10/10/2012
Source: The Statesman (Ghana)
