Fighting a culture of impunity
Denmark supports the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) and its media partners to produce and air the radio program Corruption Watch. Corruption Watch aims to raise public awareness on corruption cases that have been opened, but have stalled in the process, highlighting the frequent reluctance of the relevant authorities to take corruption cases brought before them, from investigation, to prosecution and conviction.
The overall objective is to gradually generate public demand for ending the impunity that results from the existing inertness. Persistence and thorough investigation are key principles of the initiative, and the show has generated numerous reactions from the involved authorities and injected new momentum in the cases presented.
The Corruption Watch programmes, which begun in English, have for some time been supplemented by a local-language version focusing more on petty corruption and broadcast by another radio station. The Corruption Watch programmes has about 83,000 listeners on Joy FM and 79,000 on Adom FM according to the 2017 GeoPoll.
Visit Corruption Watch Ghana's YouTube channel here. Or go directly to their YouTube playlist with videos from their concept "From the Streets".
Documentaries on Corruption in Ghana
Corruption remains a canker in the Ghanaian society and it is a key challenge for the Government, the business community, the civil society, and all citizens to fight the malpractices that result in leakage of massive resources which should have been spent to build the country.
In five short documentaries, it is shown how corruption negatively affects all levels of the Ghanaian society. The films were taken during 2016 before the election, but the issues portrayed and discussed are still relevant. The films offer an important insight into the role of corruption in the education system, in the everyday life of many Ghanaians, and in the business community. They also give voice to some of the civil society organisation which have dedicated their effort to fight corruption, and they present an overview of the challenges that remain.
The films have been produced by Batavia Media ApS with support from Danida.
Watch them all here.
International Anti-Corruption Conference 2018
In October 2018, the Danish Ambassador and a strong, Ghanaian delegation went to the International Anti-Corruption Conference in Copenhagen. Ghana sent a very strong delegation with among others the Deputy Minister of Finance Kwaku Kwarteng, Auditor General Daniel Yaw Domelevo, Special Prosecutor Martin A.B.K. Amidu and representatives of media and civil society. The two ambassadors of Ghana to Denmark, Amerley Ollennu Awua-Asamoa, and Denmark to Ghana, Tove Degnbol, were also participating.
On the very first day of the conference, more than 45 national governments, businesses and organisations endorsed a statement aiming to prevent and drive out corruption. The signatories – among them Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Finance Kwaku Kwarteng – pledged to take action in key areas including returning the proceeds of corruption to their rightful owners, ending secrecy over company ownership, clamping down on money laundering and tax evasion, promoting integrity in state owned enterprises, and improving implementation of existing conventions such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption and frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
Five short films were made from IACC with interviews and film from the delegation's experience at the conference. You can see them here: (1) Time to Act Against Corruption, (2) Reporting from Copenhagen, (3) Corruption is a Crime - Deal with It, (4) Message from the Minister and (5) Completed Conference - Time to Act.
"Civil Society gives me hope" - Auditor General
In October, Auditor General Daniel Domelevo travelled to Copenhagen in Denmark to participate in the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC). Back in Ghana after the conference, the Auditor General agreed to an interview with the Embassy of Denmark to share some of his ideas of how Ghana can achieve more in the anticorruption area and how these ideas can be implemented in the Ghanaian reality.
Make corruption a high-risk enterprise
In September 2019, Special Prosecutor on Anti-Corruption, Martin Amidou, gave an interview to Dave Boampong in ‘Time with David’ in which he tells about the root causes of corruption in Ghana and reflects on the problem in Ghana in a historical and international perspective. In the interview, Martin Amidou openly tells about the hindrances to his work which he experiences from government officials at all levels.
According to Martin Amidu, “corruption destroys democracy, it destroys the Rule of Law, it destroys the economy, and it makes the poor poorer”. The only way to combat it is to make it a high-risk enterprise and this is what the Office of the Special Prosecutor is aiming to do.
