TI-GHANA TRAINS MEDIA ON ANTI-CORRUPTION; ITS GENDER DIMENSIONS 5th NOVEMBER, 2025

Media practitioners and civil society organisations in the Upper East Region have been trained to enhance their understanding of corruption, its nature, causes and manifestations and its negative effects on society. The media is thus called upon to make available its various platforms and channels to facilitate the sharing of experiences and encounters with corruption and how people dealt with them.

Transparency International Ghana (TI-Ghana) with funding from the European Union and the GIZ under the “Participation, Accountability and Integrity for a Resilient Democracy”, PAIReD Project, organised the one-day training in Bolgatanga, the regional capital. The training was also attended by gender desk officers from some selected assemblies in the region, PWD Executives, officers from the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) as well as officials from the National Commission for Civic Education.

In her opening remarks touching on the training title dubbed “CSOs and Media Training on Anti-corruption & Gender Dimension of Corruption”, Executive Director of TI-Ghana, Mrs. Mary Awelana Addah said the time was rife for the media to turn its attention and searchlight on other under-reported forms of corruption such as the gender dimension of corruption. She observed that in the society’s daily life, people often faced issues of discrimination in their attempts to access social amenities, public goods and services whilst in other instances, there are blurred lines regarding equality and equity using the gender card which in most cases, goes to the disadvantage of the person at the receiving end.

Mrs. Mary A. Addah, TI-Ghana Exec. Dir.

Mrs. Addah noted that, it is premised on this background that journalists and other stakeholders must remain alert to report on such occurrences and also, assist victims to reach out to the various state institutions tasked with the mandate of fighting the canker of corruption while our front-line anti-corruption crusaders such as TI-Ghana is always poised and ready to help out in demanding accountability and responsiveness from duty-bearers and persons in positions of trust.

The Executive Director for instance, mentioned sextortion as one gender dimension of corruption and reference a definition from the International Association of Women Judges saying this is “the abuse of power to obtain a sexual benefit or advantage. Sextortion is the form of corruption in which sex, rather than money is the currency of the bribe.” She however explained further that to prove this form of corruption, two components must present – the sexual component (a plain or indirect request to engage in any form of unwanted sexual activity) and the corruption component (the requester must be an occupant of a position off authority which they abuse).

Mrs. Addah cited yet another example of gender-related corruption which can happen in a doctor-patient encounter under what she described as “invasive intrusive examination” and said regrettably, a number of women have faced such experiences but turned to keep it to themselves. She however urged women to muster the courage and report such unethical acts to the supervising authorities so to as prevent their peers from undergoing unwarranted nightmares in their quest for health care.

Meanwhile, renowned Ghanaian anti-corruption crusader and past Executive Directive of the erstwhile Ghana Integrity Initiative (now TI-Ghana) Mr. Vitus Azeem, in his presentation on “Understanding Corruption” said it is imperative for journalists to receive periodic training in order to gain a better understand of corruption, types of corruption, causes, the impact, tools used, conflict of interest as well as the legal and institutional framework so as to make them more effective in their watch-dog roles in the anti-corruption fight.

Mr. Vitus, Anti-Corruption Crusader

Mr. Azeem also advised that at the local level where citizens may not have immediate access to the media to blow the cover on acts of corruption, “there must be an assembly man or woman, somewhere, there is a chief or some authority-figure who can move to the Assembly for instance and demand answers on an abuse of power or project or something that is not going right”. He lauded the TI-Ghana trainings which have taken place in the Northern Region, North-East and elsewhere stressing that such engagements were necessary to help mobilize participants’ support as anti-corruption monitors and crusaders throughout the country.

According to Mr. Azeem, one of the simplest and straight-forward definitions of corruption is contained in Transparency International’s View which basically holds that it is “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. He noted however that this definition and a few others “all tend to exclude other forms of corrupt activities such as market rigging, insider trading, tax dodging and non-disclosure of conflict of interest”. He also noted that abuse can be described s any behavior or action that harms public interest for example abuse of fundamental human rights of people or denial of certain entitlements of some members of the society. He said all these imply that corruption is hydra-headed and that’s the reason stakeholders to engage frequently to brainstorm on how to spot, act quickly and effectively on acts of corruption to save society for the benefit of all, especially the vulnerable.

Mr. Joseph Makido Azam

TI- Ghana Zonal Focal Person, Joseph Makido Azam in his remarks to close the training said it is not enough for members of the public to just resist or reject corruption acts and then walk away. He said as a responsible citizen, “after resisting, after rejecting, you must report” and disclosed that, the whistle blowers’ Act 2006 (Act 720) has listed avenues via which reports on corruption can be filed including reporting to CHRAJ, attorney General, the police, community chief and family head among others.

Our reporter interviewed Madam Abigail Adumolga of the Youth Harvest Foundation and Mr. Issahaku Abdul Gafaru, a CHRAJ District Director who both said they learnt new knowledge on the anti-corruption fight but observed there were many topics, too packed for one day.