GII: Make women leaders to reduce corruption

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has suggested to government to increase the number of women in critical positions to help curb corruption.

According to GII, results from a research they conducted showed that men in leadership position would turn out to be more corrupt than women in similar positions.

According to the report “a total of 498 respondents (81.5%) felt that there would be more likely less corruption if more women were put into positions of responsibility.”

“Similarly, 61.2% of the respondents felt that a person likely to bribe another person is generally a man than a woman,” the report added.

Corruption is said to have reached an epidemic status in the country.

Notable among such cases includes misappropriation of funds at GYEEDA, SADA and most recent recruitment scam which allegedly involved some top notch in the Police administration.

The GII released the report to mark the International Women’s Day which is being celebrated across the world.

Below is the report:

REPORT OF “WOMEN AND CORRUPTION” STUDY

ISSUED BY GHANA INTEGRITY INITIATIVE (GII) ON MARCH 8, 2015

To Mark the International Women’s Day

On this International Women’s Day, 2015, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) salutes all women worldwide but more particularly, the poor and marginalized women in Ghana who struggle to take care of their children and other family members through school and in pursuit of other basic social services in the face of the ravaging corruption that has engulfed our dear nation. GII recognizes that women continue to play a great role in improving governance wherever they find themselves.

They are care givers at home bringing up future leaders and training their children to be citizens par excellence to eschew and avoid every act that has a tendency to tarnish the reputation of their families and communities as well as their own image.

In commemoration of the day, GII has released the Report of a study that it carried out in 2013 but which was finalized quite recently on “Women and Corruption”.

The study sought to build some evidence on the link between GII’s core mandate and how women and men can play an effective role in the fight against corruption. This study sought to make a contribution to the literature on “Corruption and Women” that have tried to establish a relationship between women and men’s perceptions and experiences with corruption globally.

The general conclusion from these studies is that “women are more vulnerable to corruption than men” while others have concluded that women are more trustworthy and less prone to corruption than men in all spheres of life.

However, it is not clear if these findings equally apply to Ghana and Ghanaian women as there is no such research on the country.

This is why GII carried out the study in collaboration with the Transparency International Secretariat and Transparency International Sierra Leone (TI-SL) as a follow-up to previous gender-mainstreaming programmes undertaken by GII that sought to build evidence and knowledge around the effects of corruption on women and the role women play or could play in the fight against corruption.

Dubbed, ‘Gender Perspectives on Corruption: A Focus on Women’s Participation in the Fight against Corruption”, the study was conducted to provide empirical data which is crucial to inform GII’s advocacy strategies on mainstreaming gender in the fight against corruption nationally.

The results of the study will, therefore, be used to create public awareness and education and to inform advocacy strategies and campaigns for the strengthening of legal and policy reforms in support of the fight against corruption, particularly aimed at reducing its negative impacts on women.

Utilizing a methodological approach designed specifically to capture women’s voices and experiences of corruption and anti-corruption, the study conducted a survey on respondents’ perceptions through face-to-face interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to learn women’s experiences with corruption and to obtain a general overview of perceptions around women and corruption. Although the main target was women, a small number of men were included in the sample to serve as a control. The sample comprised a total of 618 respondents made up of 497 women and 121 men.

The findings of the study are:

There is a high level of understanding of the meaning of corruption, including demands for and giving of bribes, demands for and giving of sexual favours, unnecessarily long bureaucratic processes, demands for and giving of other favours and opacity or lack of transparency, among both female and male respondents.

The majority of both male and female respondents felt that there was a link between corruption and gender, although women were more likely to see the link than men. A little more than 60% of the respondents felt that, in their experience of corruption, their gender made a difference.

Both females and males (60.3%) agree that women are not as susceptible to corruption as men, although more women than men perceive themselves as less corruptible. Almost 62% of female respondents felt that women were more difficult to corrupt than men.

Similarly, 61.2% of the respondents felt that a person likely to bribe another person is generally a man than a woman.

Almost half of the respondents felt that power and money were more of a concern for men than for women.

A total of 498 respondents (81.5%) felt that there would be more likely less corruption if more women were put into positions of responsibility. A majority of respondents (97.75%) affirmed their willingness to be part of the anti-corruption campaign.

The study came out with a number of recommendations, including the following:

There is a need for more awareness creation, sensitization and empowerment of women to demand accountability, transparency and responsiveness from duty bearers;

There is considerable awareness of how women’s basic human rights are infringed by corruption, corrupt officials and service providers but there is still a need to deepen that awareness. Education and sensitisation of women is key to giving them the power to expose individuals engaged in corruption.

There is need for stronger laws against corruption, including greater protection for those who report the corrupt acts, to be instituted. There is a need for more women representation and empowerment in positions of authority as this can lead to less corruption in society.

There is a need for structures to facilitate activism, provide more legal education and better reporting mechanisms to support women in the fight against corruption.

These key findings provide some relevant, useful insights into the role of women in relation to experiences of and attitudes towards corruption in Ghana. The study also provides a springboard for GII and other state and non-state anti-corruption institutions to intensify sensitization efforts aimed at empowering women, enforcing legal anti-corruption policies and instruments and ensuring greater protection for those who report acts of corruption and increasing the presence of women in government as necessary steps in the fight against corruption.

Once again, GII congratulates women on the occasion of International Women’s Day and calls on all well-meaning Ghanaian women to reject, report and speak out against corruption.

This is his opinion based on the result of a survey but the truth of the matter is the state of mind as well as the attitude of the individual. Women are equally corrupt as men. Are there any stats to prove that men usually engage themselves in corrupt practices. Even if there is, the effort by most government is to eliminate these corrupt activities from the system. Anything other than complete absence of corrupt practices makes an individual corrupt. Corrupt activities done in a small manner also affect the smooth running of a system. In other societies women are even corrupt than men.

Not to fault the results of the survey and the ensuing report and generally the content of the report, I hold a contrary view on the above quoted text, which is, a lot more women in positions of responsibility would necessarily lead to less corruption.
That assertion or position would need to be revisted again in my view. In fact, recent events have shown that, there are some women in leadership position who can be equally as dangerous if not more deadly than men, when it comes to the issue of corruption in this country.
Women are equally very likely to be as corrupt as men in the "right environment" and under the "right conditions" and the facts are there to support this position. A few examples would suffice.
We have the case of Alfred Agbesi Woyome, where Betty Mould was very much in the thick of things when Ghana, minus the NDC party and gov't, was collectively fleeced to the tune of over $30million dollars, which the Supreme Court tasked the Attorney General and the NDC gov't to retrieve the illegally paid judgment debt funds.
Betty Mould was the AG when the loot happened, and the current AG's law firm in which she was a partner of Tony Lithur, the President and his brother Ibrahim Mahama's legal Counsel in the election petition and the merchant bank loot respectively, defended the Waterville loot.
Another case is one in which the CAGD was found to have been complicit in the filling of the payroll with NDC footsoldiers and ghosts to the brim, thereby serving as a conduit for the looting of state funds. Now, in trying to get to the bottom of the matter, the CAGD sought to waylay a local software company until the local software company in the spirit of open governance and transparency, which has become a major plank of governance but an extremely difficult objective to be pursued by the NDC gov't, decided to release information into the public domain to show clearly that, the origins of the conduit for the looting ala the wage bill was very much inside the office of the CAGD. It would be recalled the CAGD threatened to wring the neck of the local software company at the courts for daring to release information that showed the exact fault lines in the matter of the ballooned wage bill filled to the brim with NDC footsoldiers and ghosts. That was a dangerous move by the CAGD. The CAGD is by the way a woman.
We also know of the interesting case involving the Vickileaks saga. At some point after that saga, there was some very bizarre matter of some gold deal gone wrong where the President and his then Chief of Staff Prosper Bani's name were being bandied about left and right. It wasn't long and the matter completely died off. It was also a woman.
We also know of the case of the CHRAJ debacle where some expenses soo outrageous to be incomprehensible also surfaced. It also involved a woman.
The report may support the notion that putting women in leadership position may or could reduce corruption. However, that may not necessarily be the case from the examples cited above. Women are as equally likely as men to be corrupt when the situation and the environment and conditions are right. Corruption does not discriminate amongst gender.
It would however serve a very useful and important purpose in addressing the issue of inclusiveness and women empowerment and participation in our governance process since they form an extremely integral part of society and bring an unique dimension and perspective to the governance process which cannot be ignored if our democracy and our society is to succeed on the basis of inclusiveness, equality, empowerment, participation and effective governance.