Psychologists hold the key to the battle against corruption

The National Organising Secretary of the Ghana Psychological Association, Collins Badu Agyemang, has declared that the solution to the corruption facing Ghana lies with psychologists.

He made this known at the delivery of his research paper at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana. His paper titled “Curbing corruption-The disillusionment of the financial control experts: solutions in the bosom of psychologists”.

The main aim of his research was for stakeholders, the government and society, to realise that corruption is not just an act but a process which does not involve just one person, it grows to make the entire society tainted.

Ghana has experienced a lot of corruption scandals, from the judiciary to the rebranding of buses by Smarty’s management.

Agyemang, an organisational psychologist said that this process of corruption growing through a society, if left unattended, will result in the cyclical perpetuation of corruption as society will end up modeling offenders.

This he termed as lifestyle corruption which is already happening,  and already a psychosocial problem, he said.

He cited an example in student politics where students will mimic politicians then serve as their foot soldiers until they end up being ministers. This he attributed to they following what they see.

“Corruption is the attitude of people and how things ought to be done and who best can deal with that but psychologists” he stated.

He bemoaned the fact that psychologists had been sidelined in committees and awareness on corruption.

Money is always given by financial experts to control corruption and this has failed and thus psychologists must be brought on board.