The Chair of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) says Ghana has made progress in transparency but continues to struggle to hold public officers accountable for wrongdoing.

Speaking at a Media and Stakeholder Accountability Forum on October 21, the PIAC Chair, Richard Ellimah said reports from accountability institutions often fail to result in timely action, sanctions or recovery of misused public funds.

The Chair cited PIAC’s 15 years of reporting on the management and utilisation of petroleum revenues, arguing that the reports had produced little or no accountability for breaches of the law.

“15 years of PIAC’s statutory reports on the utilisation of petroleum revenues have produced little or no accountability. In fact, I cannot recall a single occasion in those 15 years when a public officer who breached the Petroleum Revenue Management Act was held to account, not even once,” the Chair said.

Mr. Ellimah attributed the challenge to a lack of political will rather than an absence of institutions, pointing to the Auditor-General, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, the Office of the Special Prosecutor and other bodies mandated to promote accountability.

“The real question, therefore, is not whether we have the right institutions. It is why having them does not reliably produce the right outcomes,” the Chair added.

The PIAC Chair also criticised successive governments for relying on the passage of laws and the establishment of anti-corruption institutions without ensuring effective enforcement.

On illegal mining, the Chair questioned the effectiveness of the 2019 amendment to the Minerals and Mining Act which introduced stiffer punishments, arguing that the involvement of politically exposed persons and other prominent individuals required investigation.

“We cannot keep pointing to the existence of legislation when we have not even taken the basic step of investigating the involvement of politically exposed persons and other prominent members of society in illegal mining,” the Chair said.

Despite the challenges, the Chair said PIAC has published 29 public reports since its establishment comprising 14 annual and 15 semi-annual reports and contributed to efforts to address revenue payment irregularities as well as recover outstanding funds.

The Chair, however, expressed concern about PIAC’s limited enforcement powers and funding insecurity, describing the committee as a “toothless bulldog” because it cannot prosecute persons found to have breached the law.

Richard Ellimah called on stakeholders to move beyond discussions and agree on specific actions, deadlines and individuals responsible for ensuring that accountability findings lead to concrete outcomes.

“Ghana does not lack evidence of what is going wrong in how public money is procured, spent, and accounted for. What we have not reliably built is the mechanism that turns that evidence into consequence as a result, as a matter of routine, rather than as exceptional political will in an exceptional year,” Richard said.