‘Government winning war against corruption’
The Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Frank Fuseini Adongo, has reiterated the commitment of government in the fight against corruption.
He indicated that the government was winning the war against corruption through legal, policy and structural reforms and the signal from the President that he abhorred the canker and was determined to stamp it out.
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He said the Office of the Special Prosecutor was investigating many alleged cases of corruption and people were being brought to book.
Procurement system
"We are also operating a much improved procurement system which used to be one of the major sources of corruption. Transparency and completiveness have been brought to procurement through the use of competitive tendering as against sole sourcing," he stated.
He said the government was very much in favour of the Right to Information law after working closely with civil society organisations and other partners to finalise the draft document and indicated that Parliament had given an assurance that the bill would be passed into law before the end of the year, which would increase public sector accountability and transparency.
Youth Day
The deputy minister said this during the celebration of the International Youth Day at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region on Thursday on the theme: "Raising Youth Voices Against Corruption In Africa."
It was attended by some selected students and teachers from senior high schools and tertiary institutions and the Coalition of Youth Networks in the Upper East Region.
Government interventions
He said in just two years the President had shown his love for the youth, with a total of 100,000 young people reporting to various offices to contribute to national development through the Nations Builders Corps (NABCO).
During the period of their work, he said, those youth would benefit from periodic mentorship, entrepreneurship and coaching sessions to acquire relevant skills to transit into permanent careers.
He said the government was also leveraging on the ICT boom to train the youth in vital skills and entrepreneurship, indicating that there was an Online Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship Programme being run where beneficiaries get absorbed by establishments such as Ecobank.
He disclosed that 20 community Information Centres would be built across the country to offer the needed ICT training and services to the youth.
Resource centre
This is in addition to the construction of a Youth Resource Centre at Navrongo, Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Centre in Bolga and two vocational and technical institutes in the region are among the many ways by which a viable environment is being created for the development of young people in Ghana.
The Director in charge of Projects and Procurement at the National Youth Authority (NYA), Mr Emmanuel Anaman Mensah, noted that corruption and its attendant negative effects remained vital obstructing factors to the country's socio-economic development .