The Government Contract Protection Act (1979) which is a law passed to deal with corruption in procurement and contracts has been left idle and never been used by the State against defaulters since its inception in 1979.

Sampson Lardy Anyenini, a private practitioner, disclosed this in an interview after a media advocacy workshop organised by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) on effective public education on environmental governance and Amendment of relevant constitutional provisions in relation to anti-corruption laws.

According to him, there is no history or record of that Contract Protection law ever been used by the state to punish for corruption as far as procurement and contracts are concerned.

“Meanwhile that law recovers up to three times the value of the contract if you are found to be tainted with corruption. Three times the value is recovered from the person who is found guilty. And in addition to that, the person may also go to jail for ten years. So the question is the law is there, much of the corruption is in procurement,” he said.

Mr. Anyenini indicated that Ghana has all the laws it needs to ensure good governance, stating that “my point is and we all agree that it is the enforcement of the law and not about creating new laws or amending any new laws. We have sufficient legislation in this country to fight corruption.”

The private legal practitioner also expressed worry that Ghana’s law on environmental and forest protection was not being implemented desirably for which reason the nation's environment and its forest cover were being depleted without fear.

He called on the media to be apt in their efforts to advocate for the adequate implementation of Ghana’s law on corruption and environmental protection.

“Our environment is undergoing so much of haemorrhage that we must all play our part to protect and safeguard the environment like the constitution enjoins us to do in article 41(k).

“As far as the environmental laws are concerned, the constitution review commission’s proposal for the amendment was to go in the way of South Africa and Kenya where, as part of their bill of rights, people have the right to a clean and healthy environment.

“And once they discover that a clean and healthy environment is not being provided, they have the right to go to court and accept that right as a human right and for the court to vindicate the same. That is what we presently don’t have and that is the amendment that you (media) must push. So like all other rights that we enjoy, the right to a clean and healthy environment will also be a right that we can enforce. So if people are getting into our forest reserves and depleting it, we can go to court without being faced with the question, what is your locus,” he said.

On her part, the Chairperson of the NCCE, Ms. Josephine Nkrumah, believed the relationship between the NCCE and the media was critical to educate the masses to understand issues on corruption and environmental governance and their role in them.

“Our roles are very complimentary and the constitution even provides that nexus between what the Commission does and what the media does in terms of policies, principles, and objectives of the constitution.

“Environmental governance and the constitution are key matters that we must interrogate. How do we build that synergy? How do we get to deepen the understanding of the citizenry in order for them to evoke that mass action to support the fight against corruption; to understand that they all have a role to play,” she said.

The Executive Secretary of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Mr. Sulemana Braimah, espoused that journalists need to keep upgrading themselves and analyse the manifestos of the political parties on their commitment to addressing environmental issues.

He also urged media practitioners to endeavour to strengthen collaboration and humanise their news stories, especially on environmental matters.