The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), a coalition of state and non-state organisations in the fight against corruption, has called for the creation of a specialised anti-corruption court to handle cases of bribery and corruption.

The coalition said this would help enhance and fast-track the adjudication of corruption-related cases to promote Ghana’s fight against the menace.

Programmes Officer of GACC, Samuel Harrison Cudjoe, made the recommendation during a presentation on GACC’s 2023 Corruption Report.

The GACC Corruption Report is an annual report on the state of corruption in Ghana published every year in commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day (IACD), observed annually on December 09.

The report showed that the country was experiencing declining performances on international corruption indices, an alarming rate of petty corruption, deepening levels of grand corruption among public officers and institutions, and election-related corruption and vote-buying.

Mr Cudjoe said their study showed that corruption seemed to have been normalised among the populace.

He said the normalisation posed threats to the country’s development aspirations to transform and advance inclusive development.

“In addition, recent happenings raise concerns that the government is not providing the public with a clear pathway to dealing with corruption. Ghanaians feel that some persons in authority appear to be sending wrong signals all the time. It is as if we take one step forward and two steps backwards.”

Mr Cudjoe said the government must continue to invest substantially in the anti-corruption state institutions and intensify implementation of anti-corruption laws.

“We need to institutionalise a value system that prompts a person whose conduct in public office comes into disrepute to resign or recuse themselves from further administration of the office they occupy,” he added.

Executive Secretary of GACC, Beauty Emefa Narteh, urged state anti-graft agencies and the judicial arm of government to deepen collaboration to ensure that perpetrators of corruption and corruption-related offences were adequately punished.

She stressed that until all stakeholders committed holistically to the fight against corruption, all efforts would amount to only scratching the surface of corruption instead of winning the fight against it.