The government is committed to evaluating the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP), Deputy Chief of Staff, Emmanuel Adumua-Bossman has said.
The evaluation will assess the action plan from 2009, as the ten-year document, approved by Parliament in 2015, expires next year, 2024.
On Friday, December 8, 2023 the High-Level Implementation Committee (HiLIC) of the NACAP, the Commission on Human Rights and Administration Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) held a media engagement and sensitisation on the evaluation of the NACAP (2015–2024).
The media engagement formed part of a series of activities to mark this year’s International Anti-Corruption Day, commemorated annually on December 9.
The NACAP is a strategic action plan consultatively developed by stakeholders to help fight corruption and promote national development in Ghana.
The HiLIC says it intends to release the outcome of the evaluation in June 2024, “six months clear from the general election,” the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, said.
Responding to a question about whether the government would allow for the release of the outcome, in case it contained damning results to jeopardise its campaign in 2024, the Deputy Chief of Staff, Emmanuel Adumua-Bossman, answered in the affirmative.
According to him, the President had authorised the evaluation and given the assurance that its outcome should be made known to the public regardless of the content.
Mr Adumua-Bossman, who is the chairperson for HiLIC, indicated that the move was beyond politics and that it was necessary for the country to have such an evaluation in the fight against corruption.
He said, “In two weeks from now, the President himself will launch this officially. I don’t think if he was inclined towards … from it, he would not do anything like that. We keep him posted on this. This thing is beyond politics. This is huge. This is Ghana we are talking about.”
He continued that, “And short of pre-judging the outcome of the evaluation already, I will say we will still do it anyway because we need some document here, where it is policy or commitment. Who knows, maybe this evaluation it will generate will become the basis upon, which debate about the presidency will come up. We don’t know, but we will do it. And we are fully committed.”
The Deputy Commissioner, CHRAJ, Mr. Richard Quayson indicated that they have the support of the government.
According to him, the government led the team to seek support from the UNODC and had been with them every step of the way, remarking that, as far as he was concerned, the government is committed to the evaluation.
WHY EVALUATION
The government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, gave the reasons for the evaluation in a presentation.
He mentioned that it was to complete the cycle between laws, policies and statistics—the anti-corruption processes in Ghana.
It is also to link the outcomes of the NACAP annual progress reports and the evidence that will emerge from the evaluation exercise to re-assess the operational philosophy of the NACAP.
The evaluation is also to identify external determinants of the outputs, outcomes and impact of the NACAP, deepen collection interest and mobilise national efforts to fight corruption.
It is expected that there will be public sensitisation on the evaluation from this month to January next.
HiLIC will engage with implementing institutions from January to March 2024, finalise the instrument and have a desktop review and data collection from January to April 2024.
The data collected will be analysed and a report will be written in April and May 2024, “validation and dissemination of the evaluation report: June 2024,” Prof. Annim projected.
He said they have a census approach to reach out to all public agencies that are supposed to be part of the fight against corruption.
