Corruption is one of the most deadly social and ethical problem facing Ghanaians. One does not need to cast his or her eyes far to see corruption. It is also with us in Ghana as our cedi is with us everyday in our buying and selling.

For the purpose this feature corruption in Ghana can be classified into three levels. We can talk of white level, civil level and everyday level. The white level is the corruption lurking in the corridors of sitting governments-over pricing of government contracts, diversion of state funds to fund political activities, misappropriation of public funds etc.

The civil level corruption is found in the private sector. The last one and the most cancerous one is the everyday level corruption. On this front, we see Police officials collecting bribes from commercial drivers, parents bribing headmasters and headmistresses of the elite schools to get academic placements for their wards. It is common place in Ghana that to get things done, one has to grease the palm of an official before a duty for which the official is paid, can be done. Customs officers demand bribes from traders at ports of entry. Commercial drivers instead of paying the full amount at toll booths pay half of the toll, which goes straight into the pocket of the toll teller and the drivers are obviously not given receipts to show for what they paid. At end of the day the toll teller amasses millions of cedis for himself leaving the road fund way short of expected revenue. The most agonizing thing about corruption in Ghana is that the very institution that has to keep the flames of integrity and transparency kindling has aligned itself this cancerous act. The Judiciary is tragically caught in a clutches of corruption The recent findings from the Ghana Integrity Initiative and The Centre for Democracy and Development paint terrifying face of corruption in Ghana. The CDD 2000 Governance and Corruption Survey shows that approximately 75% of households see corruption as a serious problem in Ghana, with a majority (66%) paying 10% of their incomes (within the � 1-5 million income bracket) in bribes to public officials. 44% of firms admit to making unofficial payments to public officials, with 27% frequently or always making such payments.

Gradually, the whole society in Ghana is conforming to the drumbeat of corruption. and those who want to stand upright and be counted are seen as maladjusted, as we say in psychology. The popular saying goes: �Everybody is paying so why not pay and be free�, as if paying a bribe really makes one free. On the contrary, we are crippling ourselves and our nation. The political leaders have lost the will to fight against this cancer that this eating into the vital part of our national image. The recent APRM report on Ghana lambasted Ghana for our weak institutional structures in fighting corruption.

Anytime there is a military takeover in the country the reason advanced by the military usurpers is that the administration was corrupt. We are all living witnesses to corruption in Ghana during the General I.K Acheampong�s regime were told that a ship full of cocoa meant for export had gone missing. Later the ship was found but not the content. What an irony? In 1995 when the CHRAJ found some members of then ruling party of corrupt deals the government of the day issued a white paper to cover them.

When President Kufour was being inaugurated on the January 7th, 2001 he made a resounding declaration that �there will be zero tolerance for corruption in his government�. Ghanaians were happy thinking that the administration had come to inject haemoglobin of honesty and transparency into the veins of the Ghanaian politics but after the trial and conviction of Mallam Yussif Yaya then Minister of Youth and Sports and others for causing financial loss to the state the steam for the zero tolerance for corruption died down. The anti corruption steam of President Kufour has come to the freezing point of zero degrees. One is not wrong when one says that within the Kufour�s regime anti-corruption crusade has been retrogressive instead of progressive. When allegation of corruption is reported the president would say that if you can provide evidence the case would be investigated.

At the 2005 parliamentary vetting of ministers, it came out that Dr Anane when sent to the US on made an adulterous relationship with lady which resulted in pregnancy. It came to light that the Dr Anane wired a whooping sum of tens of thousands of dollars to the lady to take of the son. When he appeared before the committee he said that the money came from a friend who decided to do good on his behalf. One would expect that the president who was holding the sacred sword of anti-corruption high to withdraw the nomination of Dr Anane and commission an investigation to the allegation. The question we should ask is: what caused the alleged friend to do good on behalf Dr Anane? Don�t we think this will allow the so called friend get an unwarranted favour from the minister at the expense of the tax payer? So far President Thebo Mbeki of South Africa has proved to the world that he does not just talk glibly about corruption but he has the tenacity to fire his deputy because of corruption charges. He has set a good precedent.

So after near 50 years of nationhood there is where we are. Corruption has become a major problem in the country. Before a contractor is given a state contract he/she must agree to pay some percent of the contract sum either to the sector minister or the district chief executive or into the ruling party account. This practiced has been evidence in the shoddy work we see around.

Appiah Kusi Adomako is a freelance writer and the president of the Ghana Chapter of Leaders of Tomorrow Foundation. He can be contacted through: Leaders of Tomorrow Foundation, P.O. BOX. KS 13640. Kumasi. Tel 027-740-2467 Email: appiahkusiy2k@yahoo.com . http://www.interconection.org/lotfound

By Accra Mail

Fri, 14 Dec 2007
General News

The Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service and some organizations have uncovered plots by some people to recruit children for prostitution during the African Cup of Nations tournament, Ghana 2008.

The government has therefore been called upon to put measures in place to prevent the plotters who are mostly human traffickers from having a field day.

Panelists at a two-day workshop on “Combating Child Trafficking in Ghana – the Role of the Media” noted that, human trafficking is the third most lucrative business in the world after drugs and trading of arms, with an estimated annual earning of $5-$7 billion.

The workshop at Senchi near Akosombo in the Eastern Region was organized by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and sponsored by the British High Commission. It brought together journalists from Volta, Eastern, Central, Greater Accra and Western regions.

The human traffickers often recruit minors who are turned into sexual workers. These children are exploited and paid pittance for their “hard work”.

The children sometimes end up contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Prostitution is illegal in Ghana..

The fear of the panelists emanated from the fact that, globally, perpetrators of human trafficking habitually take advantage of international sporting events like the Ghana 2008 tournament to recruit sex workers for their operations, which children are not left out.

A child right activist Mr. Bright Appiah of Children’s Right International an NGO, said that he had information from Kumasi that some “underground agents” have been paid to recruit sex workers which some of the targets are children.

He said as the security agencies beef up their watchdog role in host cities and surrounding towns of Ghana 2008 tournament, children could also be protected if government imposed a curfew on children during the tournament.

The Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, Mr. Adu-Poku said international sporting events have become fertile ground for human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children.

“The international sporting events have become a fertile ground for human trafficking, for sexual exploitation, the documented patterns of frequent trafficking of children for force prostitution during world cups and others as well as the increase of recruitment of children for force prostitution in South Africa for the upcoming world cup create a dire picture..We need to fight it to ensure zero tolerance for human trafficking,’ he said.

He said human trafficking is linked to organized crime and called for concerted efforts to cut the demand and discourage the supply.

According to a UN estimation, about 706,000 to four million women and children are trafficked every year. Out of the figure, 50% are children with some as young as under six years.

Mr. Adu-Poku said with the money they are making out of the business, it would be very difficult for them to stop. To fight human trafficking effectively, he said there should be protection, prosecution, awareness creation and assistance to victims.

Tatiana Kotlyarenko, Executive Director of Enslavement Prevention Alliance West Africa said, even though anti-human trafficking preventative measures have mitigated the practice, there is still the need for the media to play a critical role in spreading awareness of human trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation.

“In South Africa, there are media reports of how street children as young as nine years old are being lured and prepared for prostitution for World Cup 2010,” she said and warned: “With no preventative measures in place and relatively easy border crossings for other ECOWAS members prior to and during the CAN 2008, it is highly probable that thousands of women and children will be trafficked into Ghana for the purposes of sexual exploitation, as well as recruited internally.”

Child rights advocates met on Monday at the offices of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to strategize on how to abort the plans of the traffickers.

Meanwhile there have been media reports of invasion of prostitutes from neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria to Accra and Takoradi respectively, a move the secret association of sex workers in both cities have expressed concern about.

Latest Headlines

Accra – Ghana’s immigration service on Wednesday announced it had broken up a Chinese human trafficking ring which promised jobs in Europe and the United States to Chinese migrants smuggled in and then out of the West African country.
The bust highlights the growing problem of illegal immigration to Ghana by migrants from around the globe who believe that access to Europe or North America will be easier from Africa than from their home countries in the Middle East or Asia.
Seven Chinese nationals who paid as much as $5 000 each to the ring allegedly run by Lin Xianglan and her husband were to be deported on Sunday, Ghana Immigration Service director Elizabeth Adjei said.
Xianglan, 45, was also taken into custody and is expected to face trial on charges to include fraud.
“There was nothing legitimate to what she was doing,” Adjei said of the Chinese businesswoman, who was also the operator of a Ghana restaurant and casino.
“She came in as a visitor and all of a sudden owned a restaurant, which was already operating.”
According to the GIS investigation, Xianglan had registered the Al-Las Company in a bid to take advantage of the benefits offered to businesses operating in one of Ghana’s commercial Free Zones.
The Free Zones are commercial havens that allot tax relief and liberal employment quotas to manufacturers who base their operations in Ghana.
The concept has been promoted by President John Kufuor as part of his economic reform plan to rid Ghana of its external debt and grow its economy.
Preliminary interviews with the suspect and the would-be migrants suggest that they were recruited in China and then, using false documents, were able to obtain visas from the Ghanaian embassy in Beijing.
After a brief stay in Ghana they were to head to the United States, again using false documents.
Adjei said “several hundred” Asian migrants have been caught by GIS and returned home – ironic, she noted, in a country that has in recent months had to repatriate dozens of its own nationals nabbed by European and Libyan immigration officials trying to make their way north.
“We had Ghanaians in mind for our anti-trafficking operations; we did not plan for this new phenomenon,” she said.
Regular flights from East African airports in Kenya and Ethiopia are packed with aspiring immigrants, and Ghana’s land borders with Togo and Ivory Coast are also conduits for migration.
“People are using our country as a transit point, with their final destination being the United States or Europe,” Adjei added.

“We have been very much aware for some time (of the trafficking problem) and have begun to raise scrutiny when Asians arrive at our port, or our airport. Some of them are even bearing tickets for Mexico City.” – AFP

Here we go Chinese deported from Ghana.

Accra – Ghana is a source, transit point and destination for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced domestic commercial labour, a United States official said in Accra on Friday.
Rachel Yousey of the US. Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said a report on the human trafficking situation in Ghana showed that Ghanaian children were trafficked internally for forced labour in fishing villages and cocoa plantations and were sent to urban areas in the South to work under exploitative conditions as domestic servants, street vendors and porters.
Ghanaian children are also trafficked to Ivory Coast, Togo and Nigeria, said Yousey, who is on a five-nation African tour that will also take her to Togo, Benin, South Africa and Mozambique.
Recruiters typically target poor children, who are removed from their home communities with their parents’ consent, she said.
New bill praised
She said women and girls are trafficked to Western Europe, principally Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, where they are sexually exploited. Some young Ghanaian women end up in domestic servitude in the Middle East.
Yousey said Nigerian females en route to Western Europe for sexual exploitation transit Ghana. Burkina Faso victims pass through Ghana on their way to Ivory Coast.
Foreign victims of human trafficking include children brought to Ghana en route to Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin and Nigeria for forced labour, involuntary domestic servitude and sexual exploitation.
Yousey said the report indicated that prominent among those trafficked were children, and yet data on them was rather low.

She praised Ghana for passing a bill on Thursday that seeks to prevent, suppress and punish persons or groups who engage in human trafficking. Yousey said the legislation would give Ghanaian law enforcement agencies backing to help them stem the significant human trafficking. The bill must be signed by the president to take effect. – Sapa-dpa

Thanks for the update from Bolgatanga. which is just one example of something which happens practically every week in some part of Ghana. They are VERY DESPERATE to escape from the continent and we cannot deny that.

While we have some concern about the conditions under which they are kept, these Africans should be sent out of the country as quickly as possible. If they are allowed to roam about freely in Barbados they will disappear as fast as lightning.

Bajan Free Press

The rest are Nana Kofi 34, from Kwahu, Mr. Kobi Bright, 30, Cape Coast, Mr. Jojo Kwame, Cape Coast, Mr. Kofi Otu 30, Mankessim, Mr. Kofi Akwa 34, Kumasi, Mr. William Ayaba, 23, Sunyani, Mr. Fifi Kojo, 20, Berekum and Mr. Agyei Kwabina, 17 Berekum. Narrating their ordeal their leader, Mr. Alex Antwi, said they travelled through Mali, Algeria to Morocco and to Spain but were deported to Algeria where they served one month in prison before they were released.

He said there are about another 100 Ghanaians deported from Spain and are in Algerian prisons. Mr Antwi said after their release by the Algerian authorities they travelled to Mali where they met a Catholic priest who assisted them to enter Ouagadougou.

In Ouagadougou they met a Ghanaian articulator truck driver who transported them through the Paga border to the Upper East Region where they decided to seek assistance from the Regional Coordinating Council to enable them to get to their hometowns.

Addressing them Mrs. Agnes Chegabatia, Upper East Deputy Regional Minister who received them in the presence of Mr. Daniel Taabazuing, Commander of Immigration in charge of Upper East Region, told them to take lessons from what they had gone through.

Most of the deportees GNA spoke to vowed never to travel to look for greener pasture outside Ghana and that the hardships they went through had taught them lessons.

Mr. Antwi said he used more than 25,000 Ghana Cedis from his poultry farm for the journey and that he would go back to his poultry business. Mr. Taabazuing said the deportees, who are in the custody of the Immigration Service, would be screened to find out whether they are Ghanaians after which they would be counselled and re-integrated into their communities.

Source: Read on

First of all if we are dealing with colour I will not go down that
road, As our Prime Minister David Thompson is a person of
Colour, he is not white, we are not dealing with the colour of
a persons skin.
The agenda is more Human trafficking ,which is criminal, when
you enter into a contract that is criminal and use the shores of
Barbados under the GUISE of TOURISM ,it shows contempt for
our People and Country, it matters not if you are Black, White or
Pink. I have no time for Criminal undertakings .If you are thrown
in Jail for breaking the Laws ,working without a work permit you will be treated Humanely,we should have them where and
at whose expense…….you tell me. you go on to say we will not be detaining whites of any nationality,that is a load of crap.
when a person breaks the laws in Barbasdos ,depending on
the offence you are arrested and charged by the RBPF. If you
are caught working without a permit you are put in Lockup and
Deported. Are you saying to me that my Children whose mother
is of Mixed Race with a Black Father and a White Mother is
white, we have several interracial relationships in Barbados.
What looks like Slavery……is it a free for all whosoever come….
I know I am entitled to my opinion,but how many other people feel the same. I do have duel nationality anywhere in the world
that I am I can call on the respective Goverment or its Embassies for assistance,and I am not white, you need to open your mind so you can see beyound your nose, ties with
Africa is ok ,but not at all cost or at the expense of Barbadians.
We need to assist those working class Barbadians who can
hardly afford to put a meal on the table,before we can extend
a helping hand to others.

You do make some valid points and you are entitled to your opinion. While we call for the Africans to be treated humanely, we don’t go as far as saying they should be given jobs in Barbados. Ghana and Nigeria are the countries where they should be. Having them cooped up like chickens is NOT the right way to treat people. We would certainly not be detaining whites of any nationality under armed guard at Paragon. It looks so much like SLAVERY to us. But maybe not to David Thompson, because he is NOT BLACK.

We cherish closer ties with West Africa, but we also say that these visitors have overstayed their time and should be sent back to Africa.

Bajan Free Press.