The Transparency International (TI) has attributed Ghana’s four-year stagnation on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) to the country’s deteriorating justice system which is adversely affecting accountability from public officials.
The TI says the decline in Ghana’s Rule of Law Index per the World Justice Project has resulted in the development owing to the direct correlation between the two variables.
This comes after Ghana’s four-year zero performance on the Corruption Perception Index released by the international anti-corruption agency, with a score of 43 each consecutive year.
“Under the theme for the CPI 2023 – Corruption and Justice, Ghana’s stagnated score highlights a global trend of deteriorating justice systems which is reducing the accountability of public officials and therefore allowing corruption to thrive.
“The connection is reinforced by Ghana’s performance in the Rule of Law Index produced by the World Justice Project which demonstrates a concerning decline. In the 2015 Rule of Law Index, Ghana scored 0.60 and ranked 34, but by 2023, Ghana’s score had decreased to 0.55, with a corresponding drop in ranking to 61.
“According to the Rule of Law Index, the world is experiencing a decline in the functioning of justice systems. Countries with the lowest scores in this index are also scoring very low on the CPI, highlighting a clear correlation between access to justice and corruption,” the report detailed.
The Ghana Integrity Initiative, the local chapter of Transparency International, is therefore recommending to Parliament to lay the Conduct of Public Officers’ Bill to situate the asset declaration at a position where verification would become compulsory, defining severe punishment for non-compliance.
“The Executive should urgently take steps to lay the Conduct of Public Officers’ Bill in Parliament ensuring that provisions on assets declaration require verification and come with severe sanctions for non-compliance while GII also calls on the Legislature to attach an equal level of urgency to its timely passage. The Executive and the Legislature must take steps to bridge the legal gaps necessary for the prosecution of selected corruption cases outside our current legal framework,” the GII recommended.
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About the Corruption Perceptions Index
Since its inception in 1995, the Corruption Perceptions Index has become the leading global indicator of public sector corruption. The Index scores 180 countries and territories around the world based on perceptions of public sector corruption, using data from 13 external sources, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting
companies, think tanks and others. The scores reflect the views of experts and business people. The process for calculating the CPI is regularly reviewed to make sure it is as robust and coherent as possible, most recently by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in 2017. All the CPI scores since 2012 are comparable from one year to the next.
