The Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in collaboration with Accountability, Rule of Law, and Anti-corruption Programme (ARAP) have held the 2019 National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) Annual Report validation workshop.

The workshop was to generate and consider implementation challenges and also the key achievement from the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).

The two-day event came off at the Aqua Safari resort at Ada in the Greater Accra region.

Parliament through CHRAJ put in place the  NACAP as an anti-corruption plan in 2012 but started its implementation in2015.

This was to aid the country implemented the United Nations Convention Against Corruption(UNCAC) on African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC).

The Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Mr. Richard Quayson  stated in his account of the key performance of NACAP over the 5 years that modest strides have been made since 2015.

He stated that 8 activities were completed and 119 broad activities were at various stages of implementation but 8 activities are yet to commence.

"NACAP has 135 broad activities and out of the 135 broad activities 119 broad activities are at various stages of implementation with 8 activities completed and 8 yet to commence", he said.

According to him, 2019 was the 5^th where stakeholders could have met to review the report but the unprecedented outbreak of Coronavirus prevented the stakeholders from meeting to generate the report,

However, he assured that the report should be ready by the end of next month.

He noted that the mid-term review should be held this year, if the Covid-19  situation improved other than that it will be held next year.

Having looked at the achievements of NACAP over the past 5 years, Mr. Quayson noted that through NACAP:

• There is awareness of the evils of corruption and the mechanisms for reporting corruption, including whistleblowing, has increased.
• Digitization of key revenue generation institutions-computerised revenue collection systems that simplify procedures for tax collection and education and reducing opportunities for corruption.
• Accelerated digitization of the banking and financial industry; Establishment of PR & Communication units of the Judicial Service in all regional capitals.
• Also, the Automation of Superior and circuits courts, that is, the electronic case distribution system(ECDS) of the Judicial Service has been extended to all superior courts

The Office of the Special prosecutor has been established to in addition to the existing legal and institutional architecture for prosecutions of corruption offences, etc.

NACAP has significantly contributed towards implementation and the realisation of the objectives of the UNCAC and AUCPCC among others:

Ghana, in 2015 and 2019 was reviewed under the UNCAC 1st and 2nd cycle reviews respectively (i.e. prevention and asset recovery) and currently is awaiting the final report.

Ghana in 2019 participated in the review and implementation of chapters II and IV of the UNCAC on Algeria and finalised the full report on the review of Indonesia within the same period, etc.