The government and the military high command have refused to comment on allegations that a German auto firm, Daimler bribed some Ghanaian public officials to win contracts. The company told a court in Washington in the United States that its agents paid bribes and kickbacks amounting to several millions of US dollars to public officials and their agents in about 22 countries including Ghana between 1997 and 2008. Reached for its reaction, the government said the issue is best addressed by the military but the military command said the matter had not come to their attention. Commenting on the issue, anti-corruption campaigner, Vitus Azeem said the reports are a pointer to the fact “that if we in Ghana are not serious about [fighting] corruption, there are other stakeholders that are…” Mr Azeem said it was about time the authorities in Ghana took the issue of corruption seriously because through corruption “we are losing a lot of resources, a lot of development funds to multinationals which is not the best”. Mr Azeem said the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, which in his opinion is the most credible institution to investigate issues of corruption, must take the matter up. He contended that because some of the alleged bribery took place under a previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, the current government also of the NDC, cannot be trusted to do an honest job in terms of investigating the allegations because a lot is at stake. “The neutral body that CHRAJ is, we think that they should be given the chance to go ahead and investigate this.” The anti-corruption campaigner told Joy News’ Stephen Anti the citizenry should be worried about the rampant reports of public officials being susceptible to corrupt activities. That, he said is because the cost of such corrupt practices to the nation is enormous. He said Ghanaians should be even more worried “if we don’t see any specific direction as to where we are going with regards to the investigation of these issues”. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana