Monetization of politics and public procurement in Ghana
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 21 March 2023
Issue publication date: 4 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of corruption in Ghana to understand how and why it has turned public procurement into a mere money-making scheme instead of a means to provide needed public goods and services.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focuses on Ghana as a case study and mobilizes the monetization of politics lenses. Data are collected via interviews with key officials across the procurement sector (including the government, donors and civil society), documents, documentaries and news articles.
Findings
The findings suggest that the increasing costs of elections and political financing coupled with the costs of vote-buying, which has become informally institutionalized, intensify corruption practices and, consequently, turns public procurement into a mere source of cash for political ends. Political appointments and legalized loopholes facilitate this by helping to nullify the safeguard accounting and other control institutions are designed to provide. Likewise, enduring poverty and rising inequality “force” citizens into a vote-buying culture which distorts democratic premises that may drive out unscrupulous politicians; thus, perpetuating capture schemes. Civil society's efforts to remedy these have had little success, and corruption and inequality remain rife.
Practical implications
The main practical implication of the study lies in the need for a gradual demonetization of elections, and the consideration of the fundamental function of public procurement as a policy instrument embedded in economic, social, cultural and environmental plans. Additionally, given the connectedness of the various corruption issues raised, a comprehensive system-based approach in dealing with them would be more effective than a piecemeal approach targeting each issue/problem in isolation.
Originality/value
While extant literature has examined the issue of endemic corruption in developing countries using state capture, few have attempted to explain why it remains enduring, particularly in public procurement. This study, therefore, contributes to the literature on corruption and state capture theoretically and empirically by drawing on monetization of politics from political science to explain why corruption and state capture endure in certain contexts (with Ghana as an illustrative example) which reduce public procurement to a cash-milking scheme.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (Grant No. 430-2018-00851).
Corrigendum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article “Monetization of politics and public procurement in Ghana” by Philippe Jacques Codjo Lassou, Matthew Sorola, Daniela Senkl, Sarah George Lauwo, and Chelsea Masse, published in Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-07-2021-5341, contained the wrong affiliation details for Matthew Sorola. He is affiliated with TBS Business School, not Université de Toulouse. The authors sincerely apologise for any confusion caused.
Citation
Lassou, P.J.C., Sorola, M., Senkl, D., Lauwo, S.G. and Masse, C. (2024), "Monetization of politics and public procurement in Ghana", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 85-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-07-2021-5341
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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