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Emile Short moots for an independent commission to fight corruption
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- Created on Friday, 04 May 2012 00:00
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Emile Short moots for an independent commission to fight corruption
Immediate past Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short has called for the establishment of an independent commission to check corruption in the country.
The former CHRAJ Boss made this proposal known during an interview on the Super Morning Show with Bernard Nasara Saibu, Friday.
He said, while there is an existing anti-corruption department at CHRAJ, there is the need for a separate, independent and a much enhanced commission to be able to effectively deal with corruption bedeviling the country.
According to him, the commission should be equipped with “an enlarged staff, well paid, well resourced staff. The present department of CHRAJ is not properly resourced to combat corruption in a robust manner. There are only about ten individuals in that department.”
“You need expert lawyers, expert investigators, surveyors, accountants in an anti-corruption commission like they have in other countries that can investigate corruption.”Per his proposal, the nucleus of the current anti-corruption department at CHRAJ will be transformed by legislation to be given expanded powers to arrest and prosecute cases of investigations.
He warned that “So long as this department is under the stray jacket of CHRAJ it is not going to be able to expand and we will not be able to get the kind of people with the kind of salary and resources that are needed to be able to combat corruption on a national scale.”
Unless this is done, the Ministry of Finance, he lamented, will not see “the need for the kind of agency that I am talking about.”
Citing Malaysia as an example, he said they have over a thousand employees stressing “there is so much work to be done in anti-corruption and the establishment of a separate anti-corruption commission will be worth it in the long run because we are losing billions of cedis in corruption activities in many public sector institutions.”
Giving insight into his proposal, Justice Emile Short explained that the agency will have three departments; an investigation department, public education department and a prevention department, all equipped with the requisite staff to adequately tackle the issue of corruption.
“Fighting corruption requires a lot of different activities not on education but prevention mechanisms and also solid investigation, arrest and prosecution,” he noted.
He was worried that the current CHRAJ legislation does not have the powers to arrest and prosecute, adding, “the present system is quite cumbersome.” He therefore argued that, “expanding that department will not solve the problem.”
Source: From: Ernest Dela Aglanu/ Myjoyonline.com
