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It might well be that the use of the English language as the official medium for communication poses many �challenges� for many of us, if I might borrow the terminology much preferred by government spokespersons. After all it is the second language for most of us and for many people; English is the third or fourth language. What is more, these days there are many teachers of English whose own grasp of the language is at best, suspect; but that is another story. We should be forgiven therefore when we miss the finer nuances of the English language. But it is not the general use or misuse of the language that concerns me at the moment. My mind is agitated by what seems to me to be the deliberate use/misuse of a word in our country now to obfuscate what is probably the biggest problem facing our country. Hardly any day goes by now without somebody or some group lamenting that the nation has been overtaken and engulfed by corruption. The Christian Council has said it; General Nunoo Mensah, a former National Security Advisor, no less has said it; judges have said it and the airwaves are full of stories about corruption. I have heard a suggestion from a government spokesperson /communicator that we are hearing a lot about corruption because the government is shining a light on the problem. The President of the Republic himself on arrival in London on his current trip outside the country is reported as lamenting the weakness of our systems as the reason for widespread corruption. Stealing and thieving I have a problem with the current use of the word corruption in this country. The word in our current usage seems to mean �unavoidable stealing of public funds�. Spokespersons tell us that corruption is in every society and it has been with us from time immemorial, a clear suggestion that it would always be with us. I am in no position to challenge this assertion but many of the scandals that have erupted in the past three years sound to me very much like good, old-fashioned stealing and thieving to which we have given the fancy name of corruption. When a classroom block that is known to cost GH� 200,000 to build, is given out on contract for GH� 800,000, the name of the game is stealing ; or if you want a fancy name, you might employ fraud. The engineers and quantity surveyors who pad up the numbers to get to GH� 800,000 cedis are engaged in fraud, and they should be treated as such. The goings-on at SADA, GYEEDA, SUBA, Ridge Hospital, ETC. and the current mess at the National Service Secretariat are all being labelled as �corruption�. Unfortunately our experience shows that once something is described as �corruption�, the next thing is to throw up your arms in the air in despair and accept that nothing really can be done about it. When someone is described as �corrupt�, or an action falls under the �corruption� umbrella, it does not seem to have the repugnance that comes with �thieving� or �stealing�. It is my view that this is a deliberate muddying of the waters to confuse the people of Ghana. It provides a cover for authorities who are unwilling or unable to tackle the problem. In my book, when you have 100 people working in your establishment and you have 200 names on your payroll, it is stealing, it is thieving; it is NOT corruption. It might well be that the word corruption had a gravity and probably still has this gravity with native English speakers; over here in Ghana, I am afraid the word has become something that is a subject for preaching by Presidents, priests and prophets. It is a word that covers up inaction. It is a higher and grander and posher level of stealing. Commission of enquiry Once branded as corruption, the people accept that the problem cannot be dealt with immediately; a commission of enquiry has to be set up, it becomes part of the statistics that would decide where Ghana would place on some list that would be published next year. If someone steals two computers from the Ministry of Education, for example, the chances are the theft will be investigated; the person will be found, prosecuted and punished by the courts according to the law. However, if the Ministry of Education should buy 25 computers at three times the advertised price of the machines, this will be labelled �corruption� and at the very best, there might be a committee of enquiry. The term �corruption� has become a synonym for stealing or thieving when done by important people or people the government is unwilling to prosecute. If the President is indeed worried about the stealing of public funds and wants to do something about it, we should all help him by starting with calling a spade, a spade; which term, for the avoidance of any doubts, means to speak about things in a direct and honest way even though it may be impolite to do so. Therefore, if members of a public board grant themselves an obscene amount of money and give it a fancy name, let�s call it stealing and prosecute them. If a young Minister of State whose lifetime earnings can be easily computed because he/she has never done any work other than for the government, builds a mansion, let us not call it corruption. He/she is no different from the man who has been given an 18-month jail term for stealing a bunch of plantains or the one who was nearly lynched at Taifa last week for stealing two cockerels. The English language is not ours and often, many of us have difficulties with some aspects of it. Indeed some people go as far as to claim there is such a thing as Ghanaian English. But when we have removed all sense of decay and putrid attributes from the word corruption, we should leave it well alone and start calling things by their real names. When you help yourself to something that does not belong to you, you are not corrupt, you are a thief.