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CHRIS-VINCENT Writes!

Incentive to ‘Be Corrupt’ | Judicial Service Staff in Ghana to Strike Over Unpaid Allowances

Judiciary
Judiciary

A few weeks ago, Ghana’s Judiciary became the talk of the country and beyond—owning to the fact that investigative Journalist-Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposed certain judges and officers as corrupt.

This baffled certain Ghanaians who seem to be unaware of what it takes to live in Ghana: either pay your way to the top or you join a long stagnant queue.

At the peak of the judicial scandal conversation, I wrote an article titled “Judiciary Corruption in Ghana | A Complete Waste of Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ Time & Resource” in which I stated among other things that:

“No one is born corrupt; this should simply tell us that getting rid of 34 judges and other corrupt court officials will do little to shake the foundation of corruption in a country like Ghana—where almost everyone takes part or aids in some sort of corrupt/bribery practice at least once in a life time.

You cannot prune the branches of a mango tree and expect the new set of leaves to be that of oranges. This is exactly what we do in Ghana and the many hard works of Anas Aremeyaw Anas over the years have achieved no lasting result because of this—-our inability to dig deeper for enduring solutions. We always get rid of those who are unfortunate to be caught on camera and imprudently deceive ourselves into thinking that; we’ve dealt with the problem.

Ghanaians are not corrupt because of the food they eat—but it’s because the systems make bribery and corruption the only reasonable option, most times. Why would I waste 3 months going to court at least once a week for driving without insurance and be later fined £10 (60GHS) when at the time of the arrest, I could have just given the arresting policeman £2 (12 GHS) and be free?

You must be deeply insane not to bribe a policeman under such a waste of time and injustice legal/judiciary system.  Being honest in Ghana fetches you only two things; unnecessary delays and no results. Justice and dignitary are for sale—and I am not even talking about the disgraced court officials.”

Today, it has emerged that Ghana’s judicial service staff through an umbrella union have issued a letter, notifying the appropriate authorities of an impending strike action over unpaid allowances—and we are talking about many months of arrears.

With such a porous and cheaply managed system where people in charge and capable of influencing justice are not being treated fairly, what do we reasonably expect? I am not saying the fact that you’ve not been paid your allowances is a justification to be corrupt—but we cannot rule out the innate possibility of it being an “incentive to be corrupt.”

We do not give our judicial service workers what they deserve and yet we expect them to act appropriately and grant us the untainted justice we desire. That’s pretty much like throwing a ball straight to the wall and expecting it not to bounce back.

In abstract, we want honest individuals working tirelessly to bring us justice but in reality, our systems are ineffective at fetching us that—a hungry man will definitely take a bite of the food meant for the next person. That’s a necessary evil.

It’s time we pay the needed attention to our structures and the supervising units if we want to control corruption within our judiciary—simply sacking or suspending some few unlucky bad nuts won’t have a lasting effect if the incentives remain.

We want people to do their work painstakingly? How about paying them what they are due for a start?



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