the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Ghanaweb.com
March 16, 2005

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has called on the country’s government to implement legislation that will allow it to subject ministers and public officials to greater degrees of scrutiny, particularly in regard to construction contracts, the Ghana News Agency reports [PDFver here].

The recommendation follows a recent report by global graft watchdog Transparency International (TI) that claims the construction sector is the sector most prone to corruption of any nation.

According to the GII, the enforcement of a Public Procurement Act in Ghana would help the government make good on its pledge of “zero tolerance for corruption” and promote greater accountability and transparency.

Speaking at the launch of TI’s 2005 Global Corruption Report, Mr. Daniel Batidam, executive secretary of the GII (a local chapter of Transparency International), said Ghana’s construction industry was especially prone to corruption at various stages of the construction process, manifested by a lack of transparency in the award of contracts, fierce competition for “make or break” contracts and the opportunity for delays and overruns.

Mr. Batidam quoted TI Chairman Peter Eigen as saying, “corrupt contracting processes leave developing countries saddled with sub-standard infrastructure and excessive debt.”

He said although the TI report did not include a country report on Ghana or cite any Ghanaian examples in its list of “Monuments to Corruption,” that did not mean Ghana was immune to the problem of graft.

In a separate article, Mr. Batidam is reported to have said parliament’s limited resources and technical base meant the government of Ghana could not attend to allegations of corruption properly.

He recommended the government adopt TI’s “Minimum Standards for Public Contracting,” which allows a company to bid only if it has implemented a code of conduct that commits the contracting authority and its employees to abide by a strict anti-corruption policy. In addition, companies found to be involved in corrupt activities would be “blacklisted,” said Mr. Batidam.
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