Celebrating Corruption

Corruption is still a major source of haemorrhage for our economy through which bad politicians make ill-gotten monies, giving politics a bad name. Proponents of good governance think the situation would remain so for a long time to come unless we are bestowed with a leadership committed to leading a crusade against it and through example. Having eaten deep into the fabric of society at the highest level of governance, it would take a major overhaul of governance to reduce it to the barest minimum. That is why a committed leadership must show the way to the Promised Land of de-emphasised corruption. So entrenched is the cankerworm in the public sector that it is on the verge of being accepted as a norm as in the case when contracts must be inflated so that those on the documentation processing line would take their division of the spoil. We are inclined more to celebrating it than condemning it as a society considering how people charged with protecting the public purse and held in high esteem, sometimes try to defend those who have soiled their hands with the filth of corruption. Corruption hit a crescendo recently when details of foul judgment debt payments made an infamous entry into the political lexicon of the country. So much detestation has been made against the payments by many Ghanaians following which has been the President�s empanelling of a one-man commission to study judgment debt payments. This action has not earned for the President the sincerity he sought to be associated with by the people of Ghana who have largely condemned it as a non-starter, an attempt at re-inventing the wheel, a populist gesture if you like. While we may not join the fray of a blanket levelling of allegations of corruption against certain personalities in high office, we are equally not enthused about the manner in which the subject has been handled so far. We would rather the constitutionally established institutions to deal with such financial malfeasance are allowed to function accordingly. While we accept that corruption is not a novelty being as old as prostitution, suffice it to observe that when it begins to tilt towards an epidemic or even pandemic and impacts negatively on the public purse we begin to fret. We in the media are more primed to appreciate the effects and the reach of corruption more than the average citizen. That is why we are on the verge of almost screaming about the trend of late. The country cannot survive it if the brakes are not pulled on it and presto!