By Kwaku Baah-Acheamfour Cape Coast — The recent expose by Ghana's most prolific investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, of corruption within the Ghanaian society including the security services, has indeed caused many a Ghanaian to wake up from their slumber, with many conceding that indeed things are really falling apart as the centre is continuously proving be incapable of holding the various pieces together. Over the years, leadership has indeed become the major topic for discussion anytime people converge to discuss the cause of the country's woes. According to most people, those who are supposed to know better and even show people the right way rather become the craziest deviants. "Somebody was given tax payers money to attend AIDS conference. As a country we believe in the ABC method of preventing AIDS but the person demonstrated that he did not believe in the abstinence option, neither did he believe in the faithfulness aspect nor condom use. He created his own option D which was 'none of the above' and went to give birth. Leadership failed in disciplining the person," an angry lecturer stated. Another area which also looks dicey is with the issue of corruption among the security services. Security personnel are supposed to be helping in averting criminality, in order to strengthen and enrich the developmental agenda of the country. For this reason, most people are confused as to how these same security personnel are always found to be culprits in almost every negative practice that occurs in the four corners of this country. Many a time fingers are pointed at the Police as the institution that is infested with bribery and corruption as a result of the 'nokofio' they take on the road. Anas' expose has shown that in terms of corruption, what the other institutions like the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), military, national security and Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) take, relative to police officers, can run down the country. "My brother, after all, the various security agencies enjoy better conditions of services than the Police; they have better accommodation and salary than the Police so they shouldn't be aiding smugglers in wrecking the country, especially those from the Castle Annex who sit in air conditioners and yet complain," a teacher stressed. There is a view that the greed inherent in such officials is as a result of their association with some politicians who loot the coffers of the country in the name of ex-gratia and other emoluments after just two to four years of service. "I used to go to the bank to cash money for ministers and other government officials I was assigned to. I carried various fat bags full of money while I and my colleagues were given peanuts as retirement package for over 30 years of dedicated service to this country. I am only able to go back to my family house where I am branded useless, and insulted for not being able to build a house," a retired police officer stated. This goes a long way to suggest that discontent has also become a major cause of the menace in the country as most people believe that they have been cheated in the distribution of the national cake in terms of salaries and other conditions of services, especially retirement package. Investigations revealed that such disparity in the conditions of service is a major reason why some individuals and groups of persons use extortion and other negative tendencies to balance the scale, which according to them, would never be balanced by 'pragmatic measures' by politicians. "Corruption would be kicked out if we stopped thinking that all people are equal and begin to think that some are more equal than others. Fair distribution of the national cake would cut out corruption from their reach," a pensioner added. Source: The Public Agenda