The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, in a thought-provoking speech last Saturday at the 19th GJA Awards Night held at the Banquet Hall, State House in Accra has lashed out at the canker of corruption which has gripped every facet of the Ghanaian society, opining that even those who blame others for indulging in it inadvertently also same.
�As you will appreciate, I have had several encounters with various people with complaints about corruption. There was this one who felt he had become the victim of an obnoxious public officer and was going to teach him a lesson. How was he going to do it? Simple. He had prepared a hefty envelope which he was going to give to a senior police officer to induce him to arrest and �put the fear of God into him�.
�When I reminded him that he would be committing a crime by trying to bribe a police officer, his answer was Otumfuo, how am I going to have redress if I don�t do it? That�s the only way now.
�Then there was the other who was certain that he had been cheated out of a contract through corruption. He was determined to expose the corrupt process and for that, he too had prepared another substantial envelope for a media man who had promised to help him. I asked him where he was going to bribe the media man to expose the bribery of the public officer,� the Asantehene said.
According to him, corruption, vicious and corrosive as it is, is gnawing through the country�s system, threatening to derail much of what Ghana has achieved over the years. He bemoaned the fact that for Ghana�s political class, corruption is not the issue; the issue is who is better at it, which party has been more corrupt.
He said this tells that the country is in danger of coming to accept the inevitability of corruption as our way of life.
�And yet this is not something to trifle with. It is destroying business. It is undermining national governance. It is frustrating individuals. And it is eroding international confidence in our country.
We must accept that it is part of the problems afflicting the economy today and while we ponder over policy options, we must cry out for some act of courage to tackle the scourge of corruption, not on the peripheries but at the top,� he said.
Otumfuo Osei II said in the face of the elements of corruption, functional deficiencies and resource shortages, there was the need for the Ghanaians to put their faith in the media to pursue the national interest.
He therefore urged the media to be prepared to take some tough measures such as embracing major structural changes to improve their viability and lessen their vulnerability to extraneous pressures.
�I recognize that in a multi-party democracy, the media, particularly newspapers, will reflect the views of different political parties, but in a curious way, the interests of democracy are better served by the media loosening ties with political parties and attracting more independent minded expertise,� he added.
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