The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has admonished the electorate to stop voting for the ‘highest bidder’ politician as that amounts to auctioning the country’s elections.
“The current worrying trend of people being paid by politicians to vote for them creates an enabling environment for these politicians when they are elected to political office to engage in corrupt practices to recoup the amount spent during the electioneering campaign,” it bemoaned.
The Commission warned that the citizenry were getting the kind of politicians they deserved as those in authority, as well as in the public sector reflected the population as they emanated from the society into power.
Richard Quayson, Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ said this when he was speaking on the topic: ‘Is the fight against corruption a mirage or reality-The perspective of CHRAJ’, at the 15th edition of the Ghana News Agency-Tema Industrial News Hub Stakeholders Engagement which is an initiative by the office as a progressive media caucus platform for state and non-state actors to address national issues.
According to him, “we are somehow creating the politicians that we want, we ask them to bribe us so that we can vote for them and they also intend to induce us monetarily, materially to vote for them, we accept inducement and vote based on highest bidder.
“So that after they win, we can queue at their doors for our daily bread, funeral contribution, school fees, and rent, among others without caring where they get the money from.
“We know Members of Parliament and other politicians do not make money or have money machines, but we demand all our needs from them, it is our money they will find a way to divert to please us and it is not enough for people to blame and only point at politicians and people in authority as corrupt.
“When they contribute to creating platform for it, I am not saying the politicians should not take their blame but let us also blame ourselves for creating conditions for corruption,” Mr Quayson cautioned.
He lamented people were not interested in taking responsibility towards nation building and rather see it as the responsibility of politicians while they see themselves as people with rights but do not want to take responsibility because they think rights are one-sided but have both sides, rights and responsibilities.
Francis Ameyibor, Ghana News Agency, Tema Regional Manager, observed that there was the need for collective approach to the fight against corruption as it had dire consequences for all and was getting out of hand, adding that “if nothing is done about it immediately, we are all not safe, watching unconcerned a ticking time bomb and sadly playing blame game instead of taking pragmatic action to defuse it”.
