A damning 2022
corruption report on Ghana has shed light on the pervasive issue of bribery
within the country’s public sector.
According to the
findings, police officers have emerged as the most susceptible to bribery among
all public officials, with an alarming prevalence rate of 53.2 percent.
The survey,
conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in
partnership with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice
(CHRAJ) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), presents a concerning snapshot
of the extent of corruption.
Ghana
Immigration Service (GIS) Officers and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) customs
officers also ranked high on the list, with bribery rates of 37.4 percent and
33.6 percent, respectively.
Notably, elected
government representatives exhibited a substantially lower prevalence of
involvement in bribery, registering at a mere 2.9 percent.
Bribes paid to
public officials come in different forms. Almost 9 out of 10 of those paid in
Ghana are in the form of cash (84.8 per cent). Food and drink and the exchange
of a public service for another service are far less common, although in the
country’s rural areas (17.8 per cent) more bribes are paid in the form of food
and drink than in its urban areas (10.1 per cent).
Total cash
bribes paid in Ghana are the equivalent of almost one third of the 2021 budget
of the Ministry of Education.
Cash bribes are
1.5 times larger in urban than in rural areas of the country, with the national
average bribe amounting to Ghanaian cedi 348. Given that roughly 17.4 million
bribes were paid in Ghana in 2021, a total of roughly Ghanaian cedi 5 billion
is paid in cash bribes to public officials on a yearly basis in Ghana, or the
equivalent of 32.9 per cent of the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Education.
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