Are Ghanaians complicit in political corruption?

I listened to the Member of Parliament for Okaikwei Central, Hon. Patrick Yaw Boamah, one day at Alabaster Church when he said for the sake of his people, he wouldn’t engage in anything that jeopardizes his faith and beliefs.

Thus, he’s not going to be involved in any corrupt or fraudulent deals. He mentioned that when he hears people talking about other politicians being corrupt in the media, he then puts himself in their shoes and asks what if it were him, what would the Methodist Church say about him (of course, he is a Methodist and worships at the Calvary Society, Adabraka).

He mentioned other churches and even what his Muslim electorate says about him. Hon. Patrick Boamah is one of the few MPs who organize vacation classes for SHS students in his constituency.

He is loved by ‘Abeka’ and other market women in the constituency because he has been supporting them with capital to start their own businesses or to empower their businesses. But the question is, have we asked ourselves how much he takes as a salary or allowance that he's able to do all these things over the past years? Not to mention the amount of donations he gives to churches and mosques in his beloved constituency.

Of course, he’s doing well, together with some other MPs working tirelessly to make their constituency great. We live in a society where we expect our politicians and public servants to solve our personal problems together with the national problem as well.

Friends and family organize big parties for a politician whenever they get the nod to lead because they know they're going to make them rich. They ignore the fact that he or she has a mandate to serve his people and not to be served.

Corruption Index
The 2023 Corruption Perception Index (CPI), released by Transparency International (TI), has highlighted Ghana’s persistent struggle against corruption, maintaining a score of 43 out of 100 for the fourth consecutive year.

This places Ghana in a tie for 70th place with Benin, Oman, Senegal, Timor-Leste, and the Solomon Islands out of 180 countries.

For example, Transparency International attributes Ghana’s lack of progress to a deteriorating justice system, claiming that it undermines the accountability of public officials, creating an environment conducive to corruption.

After decades of contemplation and experimentation, the country created the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) as the flagship anti-corruption institution with the unique four-fold mandate of investigating corruption and corruption-related cases, prosecuting suspected offenders, recovering and managing assets, and taking steps to prevent corruption.

It sounds nice on paper. How joyful it sounds to the ears of the anti-corruption campaigner. Let's ask ourselves, after all these years, what have we done better to fight corruption? People will say corruption has been around since the days of Adam and hence we can't fight it completely, but I tell you today that society forces our politicians to be corrupt and hence it will be difficult to fight it.

Society blame
A public servant will be arrested for corruption and you will see a group of chiefs and elders together with our church leaders and the Muslim leaders going to beg behind the scenes for his release because at the end of the day they were benefiting from the leaking pipe. It is a taboo in our society to repeat clothes as a politician because the very own society will be talking about it.

You dare not say you don’t have money as a politician, once your party is in power, you must find a way to have enough money in your pocket just to share with the people. And who are you to complain about hardship?

The very own people will organize a naming ceremony for you and will give you a nice name, “iron man”, which means you don't like giving money to people. And the worst of it all is you can’t give donations below a thousand cedis as a politician.

And you must attend every event in your constituency or the ones you are invited to, from funerals to weddings, church programs, outdooring, just to mention a few. And it’s your mandate to donate to that event even if you are not going; your money must go. I learnt a former MP lost his seat because he refused to attend a birthday party of one popular person in the constituency and also refused to send donations; hence, the opposition termed him as arrogant and anti-social in his constituency.

The politician will do all these things and we never ask them how much their salary or allowance is; all that we care about is they are taking care of our personal needs. Well, I guess Elizabeth Ohene was right, “Maybe we want them to steal.”