Corruption Watch: Summary of cases for year under review

You may be aware that on Corruption Watch, we initiate investigations into cases that come to our attention. We also follow up stories broken by other media to bring closure and advocate reforms. Therefore, over the period under review, Corruption Watch has been working on several cases. First, here is a recall of cases we’ve investigated and their statuses.

We reported on allegations of Conflict of interest situations and procurement malpractices in contracts worth about one million Ghana cedis at the National Lottery Authority (NLA). We undertook painstaking investigations into how $100 million (or GHS 481.4 million) was spent on four helicopters for Ghana Gas under controversial circumstances. We reported the award of questionable contracts worth more than GHS1.5 million at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We brought you the special report of the Auditor General on the Liabilities of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as of 2016 in which some people engaged in overpayment and double payment for services that would have resulted in the state losing a whopping GHS5.4 billion. Among the cases that were broken by other media and we followed up is the botched revised AMERI deal. Remember the original AMERI deal that has been questioned is worth GHS2,455,242,000.00. We also covered the controversial multimillion-dollar KelniGVG contract that is worth at least GHS856,927,600.00. We have also kept you updated on the Ghana Standards Authority alleged bribery involving $1.2 million or GHS5.77 million. We also followed up on the $8 million or GHS38.51 million NCA spy equipment purchase. We can’t forget the Central Medical Stores Scandal involving at least GHS385 million. We were also not left out of the banking crises discourse. If we put together all the amounts involved in the five biggest cases – the KelniGVG, Ameri deal, Ghana Gas Helicopters, Central Medical stores saga and the Auditor General’s disallowances – we are talking about a massive GHS9.57 billion. What can that money do for you? Well, check out our infographics on our social media pages. However, hear this, not all of the cases involved grand corruption. Do you remember that case of petty corruption at the Kasoa office of the Electoral Commission? Yes, that case showed us how public officers at the lower level are milking the system. In that case, Harriet Djani was filmed taking an average of 35 cedis from voters who needed to replace their Voter ID cards. That amount is 600% more than the approved charge of five Ghana cedis. We can also remember the one case that gave us some hope. It is the case of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) investigating and recovering at least 11 million Ghana cedis of unpaid taxes from SINOPEC. Sinopec is the Chinese company that constructed the gas processing plant located at Atuabo and operated by the Ghana Gas Company Limited.

To conclude this summary, here are our observations about the emerging trends.

A majority of the cases shows that grand corruption is pervasive. Our analysis shows that even when politicians are the culprits of corruption, they have perpetrated their wrongs with the help of public and civil servants as well as businesspersons. We have also observed incidents of influence peddling, abuse of power, conflict of interest and procedural breaches in procurement. We have also seen that there are so many institutional weaknesses, including inadequate institutional memory and bad record keeping.  The EC petty corruption case also shows that corruption is decentralized. As well, the cases have highlighted the poor quality of investigations into some of these cases.