Dr Kwaku Owusu-Acheampong, New Juaben Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), has called on the public to stop politicizing discussion on corruption and speak out dispassionately and honestly against corrupt practices.

He observed that the pointing of fingers at political parties and governments has provided the shield for people to continue to engage in corrupt practices at the expense of national development.

The MCE was addressing the opening ceremony of a sensitization workshop on the mandate of anti-corruption institutions in Ghana and said until corruption was seen as a canker that must be uprooted, the nation would continue to suffer.

He reiterated that the damage done to society by acts of corruption cuts across the political divides and called on the citizenry not to allow politics to silence them in exposing corruption.

Dr Owusu-Acheampong called on the participants at the workshop in Koforidua to be crusaders against corruption in their communities and wherever they found themselves, adding that “the fight must start from somewhere and it must be owned by the citizens themselves who are suffering and not leave it entirely in the hands of government”.

The workshop was organized by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) in partnership with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) under the Accountable Democratic Institutions &Systems Strengthening Project (ADISS).

The ADISS is a four-year project being sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and being implemented by GII, Send-Ghana and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition to support government’s effort in fighting and reducing corruption to the barest minimum.