The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) has urged the government to ensure the independence of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) as part of measures to curb activities related to corruption, This the coalition says which always comes up in the Auditor General's annual report. The Coalition also reiterated its call for the passing of the 'Conduct of Public Officer's Bill' on time to guide public officers in assessing themselves in the office. Mrs. Beauty Emefa Narteh, the Executive Secretary of the GACC, disclosed in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra that the lack of independence of the IAA is contributing to the increase in corruption in public funds management and public funds accountability. Mrs. Narteh said it was for such reasons that the 'Conduct of Public Officers Bill' must be passed, as it seeks to regulate issues of conflict of interest. 'You can attest to the fact that most of the corruption issues that happen, a good chunk of them connect to issues of conflicts of interest, an d if we don't address it through a regulation, we are not helping address issues of corruption,' she lamented. According to her, if there are no laws to give internal auditors independence, Ghana will continue to have the same issues in the Auditor General's Report annually. She said before the external auditor flags some of these administrative lapses, the internal auditor would have seen such irregularities, adding however that because they do not have the power to ensure that such lapses are addressed, they leave them for the external auditors to pick up. Mrs. Narteh said the GACC believes corruption prevention is more important than prosecution, as getting evidence to prosecute is always difficult; therefore, there is a need to strengthen the preventive system by empowering the internal auditors to manage the public financial system effectively. Touching on political party manifestos, she said the GACC has engaged political parties on ways to curb corruption in Ghana, adding that they will monitor how it will reflect in the various manifestos. 'We have shared the issues that are of concern to us with the political parties and have engaged them to even understand it, so that they can own it, and we expect to see it reflected in their manifestos. We are also going to monitor because we notice that people put information in their manifestos without the appetite for implementation; it becomes a way to get votes,' she said. She added that the GACC was committed to monitoring governments in power on how they would implement the anti-corruption commitments they put in their manifestos and campaign messages. She said such monitoring would remind the government in power that they are not only making the promises and going back to sleep but have a responsibility of implementing them. She also called for a robust assert declaration system to ensure that people do not use public office to enrich themselves, saying it is important to have a verification system to affirm the asserts declared by a public officer. S ource: Ghana News Agency