The 2016 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, says the fight against corruption across many sectors of the economy can be defeated only if anti-corruption agencies are empowered.

Akufo-Addo argues that the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice(CHRAJ) for instance must be given the backing not just to carry out investigations but also to prosecute.

He adds that a system where the prosecutor and investigator “have a much more symbiotic relationship” fighting corruption becomes easier.

“That can come out of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). If there’s any institutional rethinking that can be done, it will be to break CHRAJ into two distinct entities: its ombudsman and human rights surveillance capacity on one hand and its anti-corruption and investigative capacity on the other,” he told the latest issue The Africa Report magazine.

“It may be that we need to do that and then give the anti-corruption wing of it the teeth to do not just investigation, but also prosecution.”

No serious reforms he says can be achieved without first tackling the structural problems in these agencies.

“It’s a very sorry tale: mismanagement and widespread corruption have brought us to where we are now.”