The Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area and Vice President of the Upper East Regional House, Bonaba Baba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum has called on Ghanaians not to leave the fight against corruption to government and its institutions alone, but all must join to curb it.
According to him, corrupt practices affect every Ghanaian in one way and deprives the entire nation of many development amenities, and so, seeing it as an activity to be stopped by government alone will be a great disservice.
“All of us here have come across corruption in our lives, in different forms and so corruption is not strange to us. We know how it come and that is why we all should be able to nib it in the bud. Corruption even permeated into our Education Sector, where people who qualify for admission and others who do not qualify rather get in there. Why are we doing this to ourselves.” He said.
Bonaba Baba Salifu Lemyaarum was speaking at the opening of a Regional Stakeholders Awareness Campaign on the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan in Bolgatanga. The Campaign is being spearheaded by the Ghana Integrity Initiative(GII), the Commission Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana News Agency (GNA).
He said the country loses a lot of money through corrupt practices and in most cases it is the poor and ordinary people that suffer the effect, while the influential people in society benefit and yet the poor and ordinary people fight for the interest and image of these influential people who are milking the state and communities.
Bonaba also mentioned Traditional Authorities as also being part of the perpetration of corrupt activities and urged his colleagues to join the fight against corruption by shunning any act to induce them to make wrong traditional decisions and abuse of the power, and rather make decisions that benefits all.
Participants at the Workshop included various Heads of Department, Representatives of Civil Society Organizations and the Media.
Source: a1radioonline.com I 101.1MHz I Ghana
