Mr. Ken Dzirasah, First Deputy Speaker of Parliament today inaugurated an 11-member Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) to fight corruption in the country.

The GII, whose interim chairman is Mr. Justice Francis Emile Short, Commissioner, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), is to operate under Transparency International, a non-governmental organization with its headquarters in Berlin, Germany. Mr. Dzirasah said the world has now recognized that governments alone cannot fight the canker. "But for the war against it to succeed, it must be led by governments" and " political authorities must demonstrate the will and back it up with the muscle".

He said the private sector, civil society and the media must work in partnership with the government and "it is in this direction that the formation of GII is very laudable". Mr. Dzirasah said "it is important that GII is objective, consistent and non-partisan in pursuit of its objectives. It is appropriate to restate the commitment of the government to the fight against corruption. President Rawlings has never made a secret of his desire to rid this country of corruption.

"He sent a special message to the Durban Conference and has given the green light to the World Bank to conduct diagnostic surveys of corruption in Ghana" with the help of multilateral and international development partners.

Mrs. Gifty Affenyi-Dadzie, President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) said "never in the history of this country has the media in Ghana taken the frontline role in the fight against this canker than in the Fourth Republic. This underscores the fact that in an atmosphere of freedom, the media can perform better".

She said "it is to the credit of the media that exposures of alleged corruption by public officials led to the historic probe by the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice which made adverse findings against some government officials". Mrs. Affenyi-Dadzie said the surveillance the media has kept on the Keta Sea Defence Project, for example, has been profound and signified the role the media can play in the fight against corruption. She therefore called for the removal of all inimical laws against press freedom.

Mrs. Affenyi-Dadzie said for the media to play its role effectively in combating corruption, there should be capacity building and training of journalists in investigative journalism. Mr. Short regretted that the debate on corruption in Ghana has tended to be highly politicized resulting in stalemate.

He said it is because of this that the CHRAJ brought together a non-partisan group of Ghanaians drawn from government, private business, civil society and religious groups to prepare towards the creation of a national movement to combat corruption. He said the "GII's mission is to continuously create and heighten public awareness of the negative effects of corruption on social, economic and political development of the country and to empower citizens to demand responsiveness and transparency from both public and private institutions ".