The National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah has blamed Parliament’s inability to hold public officers accountable for the increasing rate of corruption-related activities in the country.

The Minister was in the House to answer questions on the current state of security in the country considering the instability within the sub-region.

Responding to the urgent question filed by Kwadaso MP, Dr Kingsley Nyarko on Monday, Kan Dapaah opined that an accountability institution such as Parliament is best placed to address corruption in a democratic system.

 

“Mr. Speaker the most effective accountability institution is Parliament. If there is corruption, it’s because Parliament is not stopping it and it’s a major issue that I believe we cannot do justice to it now,” he noted.

 

 

Mr Kan Dapaah said Parliament must be concerned about the menace.

According to him, accountability institutions like Parliament must be allowed to handle corruption-related activities.

“The main accountability institution in this instance is Parliament, which approves the government’s budget to implement and has the power to get the Auditor-General to audit the accounts of government and submit it to the Public Accounts Committee,” he added.

 

 

 

In a related developed Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng has assured that his office is determined to crack down on corruption through prosecutions and asset recoveries.

Meanwhile, Ghana has been ranked 73rd out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released on Monday by Transparency International (TI) with a score of 43 out of a total of 100.

This CPI score indicates that Ghana failed to make progress in the fight against corruption in the year 2021 as the score of 43 is the same as the country’s 2020 score, Transparency International stated.

“Ghana’s current performance is still below 50 which is the expected average, thus leaves much to be desired,” it said.

Meanwhile, in Sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana placed 9th with Senegal, out of the 49 countries represented with a score of 43.