A ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament, Kojo Adu Asare, thinks a US$40 million corruption scandal that is rocking the NDC won’t affect the outcome of Ghana’s 2012 general elections and development in the country generally. Either Adu Asare just doesn’t get it or he does not understand the development project called Ghana. From the creation of the Ghana nation-state 54 years ago, corruption has been responsible for the country’s instability - until 19 years ago when genuine democracy brought stability.

Corruption affects Ghana’s progress. Monies meant for roads, food, security, health, housing, education, and other socio-economic infrastructure are stolen. Ghanaians’ life expectancy, at 64.2 years, isn’t encouraging. Poverty is still a killer. Ghana says it is poor and goes abroad begging for money to survive to support its budget, yet Alfred Woyome, an NDC financier, in collusion with other high-ranking Ghanaians, apparently received millions from the state.

Adu Asare’s NDC, which originated from struggles against corruption, is a typical African case. Corruption saw confused military coup d’états. With weak or non-existent accountability institutions, the military juntas were themselves engulfed in corruption more severe than the civilians they overthrew. Corruption saw Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, the so-called founder of Adu Asare’s NDC, violently coming to power, with the execution of some military heads of state and generals and the painful exiling of some Ghanaians. But it appears the NDC has quickly forgotten its roots and is now embroiled in a US$40-million corruption scandal that has seen some ministers and bureaucrats forced to resign and others arrested.

In all the development issues to be debated in the 2012 general elections, the central issue will be how to get money for socio-economic essentials. One cannot build socio-economic infrastructure if the state treasury is periodically looted. Adu Asare’s view that Ghanaians won’t vote based on the Alfred Woyome corruption scandal but on the image of President Atta Mills is disturbing and nonsense. Ghanaians are going to vote in the 7 December general elections based on the Woyome scandal.

Partly because of endemic corruption, Ghana ranks 135th out of 187th countries with comparable data measured in 2011 by the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI). The fact that Ghana is at a medium human development level should be of concern to Adu Asare. If Adu Asare has a feeble sense of the relationship between corruption and development, his fellow brothers and sisters in Botswana could teach him one or two lessons.

With an entrenched culture of accountability and genuine independent institutions, such as the judiciary and the legislature, Botswana, according to Transparency International, is the ‘least corrupt country in Africa and ranks similarly close to Portugal and South Korea’. Botswana leads Sub-Sahara Africa in development indicators. It ranks high, at 98th on the United Nations Human Development Index. Adu Asare should remember that Ghana ranks medium at 135th.

In Susan Rose-Ackerman’s ‘The Political Economy of Corruption’, an independent and honest judiciary, including lower level clerks and bureaucrats, are effective tools for containing corruption. In the Alfred Woyome corruption scandal some elements in the judiciary actually helped Woyome. Former Minister of Education Betty Mould-Iddrisu, who was forced to resign, refused to prosecute Woyome when the issue was first brought to her attention when she was then the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

When Ghanaians ‘examine their personal lives as to how that has improved under the leadership of President John Atta Mills and cast their votes accordingly’, as Adu Asare told the Accra-based Peace FM, they will be informed by the Woyome corruption scandal that has dented some aspects of their development process. Ghanaians will, therefore, vote accordingly.

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