The Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in collaboration with Accountability, Rule of Law, and Anti-corruption Programme (ARAP) have held the 2019 National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) Annual Report validation workshop.
The workshop was to generate and consider implementation challenges and also the key achievement from the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).
The two-day event came off at the Aqua Safari resortat Ada in the Greater Accra region, 27th to 28th July, 2020.
Parliament through CHRAJ put in place the NACAP as an anti-corruption plan in 2012 but started its implementation in 2015.
The National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) was adopted by the Parliament of Ghana as the coordinated anti-corruption policy of Ghana in 2014. The plan identifies collaboration among Anti-Corruption Agencies as a key activity to achieving Strategic Objective 4, which is “to Conduct Effective Investigations and Prosecution of Corrupt Conduct.” NACAP seeks to create a sustainable democratic Ghanaian society founded on good governance and instilled with high ethics and integrity and also to aid the country implement the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) on African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC).
Mr. Richard Quayson, the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, stated in his account of the key performance of NACAP over the 5 years that modest strides have been made since 2015.
“NACAP has 135 broad activities out of which 119 are at various stages of implementation with 8 activities completed and 8 activities yet to commence”, he said.
According to him, 2019 was the 5th where stakeholders could have met to review the report but the unprecedented outbreak of Coronavirus prevented the stakeholders from meeting to generate the report,
However, he assured that the report should be ready by the end of next month.
He noted that the mid-term review should be held this year, if the Covid-19 situation improved other than that it will be held next year.
Having looked at the achievements of NACAP over the past 5 years, Mr. Quayson noted that through NACAP:
- There is awareness of the evils of corruption and the mechanisms for reporting corruption, including whistleblowing, has increased.
- Digitization of key revenue generation institutions-computerised revenue collection systems that simplify procedures for tax collection and education and reducing opportunities for corruption.
- Accelerated digitization of the banking and financial industry; Establishment of PR & Communication units of the Judicial Service in all regional capitals.
- Also, the Automation of Superior and circuits courts, that is, the electronic case distribution system(ECDS) of the Judicial Service has been extended to all superior courts
The Office of the Special prosecutor has been established to in addition to the existing legal and institutional architecture for prosecutions of corruption offences, etc.
NACAP has significantly contributed towards implementation and the realisation of the objectives of the UNCAC and AUCPCC among others:
Ghana, in 2015 and 2019 was reviewed under the UNCAC 1st and 2nd cycle reviews respectively (i.e. prevention and asset recovery) and currently is awaiting the final report.
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