General News of Thursday, 26 February 2015
Source: citifmonline.com
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has defended its findings on why the Presidency ranked second most corrupt institution in Ghana arguing that appropriate survey methods were used to generate the outcome.
They have therefore promised to open their doors to the Presidency or government if it wishes to have further insight into the survey and its outcomes.
Findings from a survey report released by the IEA on Wednesday ranked the Office of the President as the Second most corrupt institution in the country after the Police.
The survey, according to the IEA, was conducted in all the ten regions of Ghana with persons aged 18 years and above as the target population.
But in a sharp rebuttal, government issued a statement describing the timing of the release of the report as suspicious and also challenged the IEA to back their claims with evidence.
Speaking to Citi News, a senior research fellow at the IEA, Dr. Ransford Gyampo insisted that the findings were not concocted.
“We’ve carried out surveys and research over the years, it would be amazing to think that somebody sits down to concoct stories and to write about them,” he said; explaining “that’s not how we do our work.”
Dr. Gyampo urged government and any other institution that feels victimized by the report to “drive through the Institute and we are ever prepared and ever ready to sit down and tell the story about how we came out with these findings.”
“If you want to know or get the data for your own analysis we are prepared to give both hard and soft copy information regarding what we have done so that you can do your independent analysis and assessment on the situation,” he added.
Meanwhile, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said many Ghanaians are not surprised by the findings of the IEA.
The Director of Communications for the NPP, Nana Akomea insisted that Ghanaians “will not be surprised because there is a very big perception out there that corruption starts from the head.”
Referring to some corrupt deals under the Mahama- led administration, Nana Akomea noted that about 20 million dollars given to the Savannah Accelerated Development Agency(SADA) for afforestation was wasted, adding that no one was asked to account for that the huge amount of money.