By Iddi Yire
Accra, Nov 6, GNA – Mr Emmanuel Baba Mahama, National President of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International, Ghana, has urged the management of corporate entities to identify and reward hardworking staff.
He said this would boost employee performance and engagement and help eliminate fraud.
Mr Mahama made the appeal when he delivered the keynote address at the opening of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) Second Annual National Fraud Conference in Accra.
ACFE is the world’s largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training education and certification.
The two-day Conference seeks to foster a culture of integrity and resilience against the treacherous threats of fraud and corruption that continue to challenge Ghana’s institutions and the whole Nation.
Speaking on the topic “Elevating Integrity: Building a Fraud and Corruption Resilient Future”, Mr Mahama said that leadership was key if people were to elevate integrity and reduce fraud and corruption in any society because the culture of an entity was the behaviour of its leaders.
“Leaders get what they either exhibit themselves or tolerate. So, if you go to an entity and there is fraud and corruption, either the leader is fraudulent, corrupt or he tolerates it,” he stated.
He said Ghanaians in positions needed to be conscious sometimes of their friends, relations, and families as occupying those offices was seen as not only just for himself or herself but for the tribes, family members, and friends; saying “and so it puts a lot of pressure on us and that accounts for some element of the corruption that we find”.
Touching on naming and shaming, Mr Mahama also pointed to the need for Ghanaians to look at the other side of the equation.
“What do I mean? We are always intent on naming and shaming. There is nothing wrong with that. It is legitimate. We must prevent corruption. We must pursue those who break the law. We must prosecute them. But that is only one side of the equation,” he said.
“The other side of the equation is naming and praising those who are maintaining their sanity in an environment of corruption. Those who have kept themselves clean, we should be focusing on that because at the end of the day, the focus should not be on catching people doing something wrong.”
He said the greater effort should be on catching people doing something right; declaring that as more people who do things right were elevated, then society would begin to see a preponderance of such people showing up in their organizations and in their societies.
He urged parents to always commend their children who put up good behaviour and performances.
“When you wake up in your family, don’t be looking at who broke this glass, who opened the fridge, who threw this paper here. Look at who cleaned this place. You know, who put up their lights, who swept outside. As you commend your children for what they are doing right, rather than reprimanding them for what they are doing wrong, they will do better,” he said.
He said it would be exciting for managers of organizations to go every day looking for someone who had done something to change the business in one way or the other and to encourage them, by appreciating them with a piece of commendation or a piece of chocolate.
Mr Mahama lauded the ACFE for the good job it was doing in combating fraud in the country and further appealed to them to be more visible than they were; saying “They shouldn’t forget the other leg of the equation. Naming and praising”.
Former Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, who chaired the function, recounted that she had spent all her working life working with the judiciary and that she knew how corruption and fraud had eaten so deeply into the very fabric of the Ghanaian society, which had led to Ghanaians suffering immense developmental challenges as a result of their unethical behaviour.
She urged the participants at the ACFE Annual Conference to live and practice what they learned.
She also appealed to them that in their works, as they come across people with integrity, they should award them publicly.
She said recognizing their efforts was a means of motivating others to follow the same path.
Dr Rebecca Atswei Lomo, President of the Ghana Chapter of ACFE, reiterated the need for commitment to fight fraud and corruption in Ghana.
GNA