There is a security concern about this title. But I will explain at the end of this presentation because I obviously cannot mean it literally as in a coup.

People see you. Yes, those friends and neighbours put up smiles but have questions. They know that you could not afford much until your party came to power. Yes, for some of you, they know you could not even secure a bank loan for a ¢50,000 car.

Today, I share part of a presentation made by Bright Simons, Honorary Vice President of IMANI Africa, last week on Newsfile. He analysed issues arising about accountability and transparency in procurement for the controversial National Cathedral.

Often, even very serious issues on crime and officialdom misconduct are raised in the media but left to die without the necessary sustained advocacy for action, remedial or otherwise.
I doubt Ghanaians find this okay if these issues flagged by Bright Simons are what they are.

President Akufo Addo was spot on when he declared that the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2019 (Act 989), was the mother of all anti-corruption laws. The 1992 Constitution, article 21, commanded its passage. Strangely, however, it took some two decades of a vigorous sustained campaign to get it passed.

About a decade ago, I hosted a heated debate on this show about public office holders grabbing state lands waa waa waa and for a pittance. It was turned into the usual ugly mindless nation-wrecking political equalization game. NPP officials who stood accused dug out documents pointing to NDC officials as having also benefited from a similar scheme.

Today, I return to my subject integrity. Integrity, the quality of being honest, ought to be a habit, a default conduct.

It ought to be a human, not Black or White, not Christian and not Moslem character or virtue. Don’t offer a bribe and don’t accept a bribe. Don’t tell a lie, don’t mislead, cheat and don’t encourage wrong and unlawful conduct. These ought to come to us naturally.

There is everything wrong with the very fibre of our society if a natural virtue becomes rare and celebrated because only a few demonstrate it.

Ghana’s judiciary was in the eye of the storm when Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ secret cameras caught judges and court officers selling justice. The few corrupt unworthy judges lost their jobs, and are unable today to lift their heads in society. Tiger Eye certainly put its secret cameras in the courts because of years of accusations of judicial corruption.