A former General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rev. Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong has noted with worry, the seeming vicious cycle of corruption among political parties and governments over the years.
While corruption has come up strong on many fronts with many calling for frantic efforts to curb the canker, Rev, Opuni-Frimpong believes until the subject is considered in totality, void of any political colors and petty vilification, very little will be done to rid the country of it.
Speaking on the back of recent allegations of corruption against the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, he said,
“What I have seen is that always those in government are corrupt, those in opposition are innocent when the tables turn, then those who were yesterday in government and today in opposition become angels, innocent, and then the angels who have now become the people in government are the corrupt people"
"As long as people are in government, they are corrupt because that is what the opposition will want you to believe and everybody in the minority becomes a saint”.
“Giving political colors to corruption fight and corruption in this country that when somebody is even alleged, quickly you get party faithful fighting back, media coming around, protecting their own, on that basis we’ll ask, are we serious, do we really mean to fight corruption?”.
More stringent actions, regardless of affiliations and ties, on the part of leaders and key political figures in and out of government he believes will help significantly, to deal with the situation.
Until then, Mr. Opuni-Frimpong believes the fight against corruption is nothing short of a failure.
“I would want to see a situation where governments will disown their own. Party members, regional ministers will disown their own, get them to court.
“Whether we have done enough, I doubt because corruption in this country is not only at the government side, I’m talking about even corruption in communities, traditional, examination malpractices, land sale even in the church, the deception in church so we have a serious problem but the approach to corruption fight is between party in opposition and party in government and it leaves out part of the fight”, he said.
