Here’s How Much Billions Of Dollars Corruption Is Bleeding From Ghana’s Economy
A new report from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) shows that corruption in Ghana is costing the country’s economy GHC 13.5 Bn (USD 2,370,446,100) every year.
Not just that, but that these national squeezes are also costing the global economy USD 3.6 Bn dollars. According to the report, this sum rubs shoulders with more than 5 percent of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
It is no news that weak legal systems prevalent in the African context discourage foreign investors. In developing countries, the amount of money swallowed by corruption is estimated 10 times the amount of official development assistance.
This is according to Raphael Godlove Ahenu, the Chief Executive Officer of Global Media Foundation (GLOMeF), an anti-corruption, human rights and media advocacy non-governmental organisation.
While speaking at the anti-corruption sensitization event held in Ghana this week, Ahenu iterated that corruption has remained a stumbling block in the path leading to the development of the West African country.
A recent IMANI Africa survey rated the Ghanain government’s handling of corruption at 23.60 percent. The Afroaroter survey further noted that 53 percent of people in the country believe that corruption took on a whole new level in 2018. Currently, Ghana is ranked 118 among 190 countries in World Bank’s ease of doing business annual ratings.
A 2019 report by the Transparency International (TI) said Ghana is the second most corrupt country in Africa, only after South Africa. The report, which put Nigeria as third most corrupt, also noted that about 71 percent of people living in Ghana reckon that corruption had increased in the 12 months before the survey.
Yesterday, WeeTracker reported the findings of a new World Bank report, which said that the business sector of Ghana is experiencing a stagnancy. This may have been brought on by lack of investor confidence, as suggested by the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Ghana, Ron Strikker.
At a forum (held less than 24 hours ago) centred on fighting corruption organized by the Ghana Integrity Initiative consortium, Strikker alongside the British High Commissioner, said that some investors remain skeptical about business dealings in Ghana. He noted that anti-corruption efforts were just as important as promotion efforts by the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC).
“We have Dutch investors, we have Dutch companies that want to do business here in Ghana and we know what the effect of corruption is. It is very negative.
You can organize 10 GIPC trips to the Netherlands to promote investment and trade in Ghana but if those companies hear about the corrupt practices going on in a particular then they simply will not come or at least they will be very reluctant to do so,” he explained.
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