Talk about corruption, particularly within Ghana’s public service, is no longer new. It has become a canker, a cancerous cell steadily eating away at the marrow of national development. Once upon a time, society was critical of how people acquired their wealth. Suspicious riches invited scrutiny and even rejection, not admiration. Families would distance themselves from relatives whose sudden fortunes could not be explained. Sadly, those days are gone.
Today, society glorifies the very behaviour it once condemned. People flaunt questionable wealth, and instead of shame, they are met with applause. Such individuals now use their ill-gotten riches as trump cards to win political power and social recognition. The moral fabric that once bound our society together has frayed dangerously, leaving a gaping hole where integrity used to reside.
These concerns are not just the lamentations of the old or the cynical. Eminent citizens like the Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Sir Sam Jonah, have raised the alarm about the sources of Ghana’s newfound “glamour.” He argues that much of the country’s luxury real estate, especially the high-rise apartments that now dominate the skylines of Airport Residential, Cantonments and Labone, are being financed through dishonest and illicit means.
As Sir Jonah points out, in most parts of the world, real estate developers rely on bank loans, which require financial transparency and accountability. But in Ghana, countless buildings spring up without any sign of financial traceability, only to remain empty for years. These ghost towers, he warns, are monuments to corruption—evidence of money laundering and illicit financial flows hiding in plain sight.
Adding his voice, former Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo has issued a stinging critique of Ghana’s anti-corruption fight. According to him, this fight is being deliberately sabotaged by a judiciary susceptible to political and financial influence. He alleges that powerful corruption suspects often employ well-connected lawyers to “procure” favourable judges, effectively stalling cases, until political winds shift in their favour.
Mr.Domelevo has proposed bold reforms: corruption cases, he insists, must be concluded within nine to twelve months, with judges held personally accountable for undue delays. He further calls for the establishment of a 24-hour justice system to expedite the handling of corruption-related cases and clear the mounting backlog.
While The Chronicle cannot independently verify some of Mr Domelevo’s allegations, especially the claim about “procuring judges”, we find his concerns and those of Sir Sam Jonah deeply troubling. The evidence is all around us: the Auditor-General’s annual reports continue to reveal billions of cedis lost to corruption and we are told these figures only scratch the surface.
The consequences of corruption are everywhere – on our pothole-ridden roads, in our under-equipped hospitals, in our dilapidated schools and in the inefficiencies of our social infrastructure. Corruption has robbed Ghana of progress and robbed its citizens of dignity. We, therefore, call on the CID, EOCO, FIC, NIB, and other investigative bodies to rise above interference and live up to their constitutional mandates.
Lifestyle audits must become mandatory for public officials, and the judiciary must deliver justice in real time, not on the slow timetable of convenience. Ghana stands at a moral crossroads. The question is whether we will continue to celebrate corruption or finally confront it before it consumes us entirely.
