The recent corruption report on Ghana in 2022 has revealed some troubling findings about bribery within the country’s public sector.
The report highlights that police officers are the most susceptible to bribery among all public officials, with an alarming prevalence rate of 53.2 percent.
The survey was conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in collaboration with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), providing an important 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.
Interestingly, elected government representatives exhibited a significantly lower prevalence of involvement in bribery, with only 2.9 percent reported.
The report sheds light on the different forms of bribes paid to public officials. In Ghana, almost 9 out of 10 bribes are paid in cash (84.8 percent). Food and drink, as well as exchanging a public service for another service, are less common forms of bribery.
However, in rural areas, there is a higher percentage (17.8 percent) of bribes paid in the form of food and drink compared to urban areas (10.1 percent).
The total cash bribes paid in Ghana amount to almost one third of the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Education.
It is worth noting that cash bribes are 1.5 times larger in urban areas compared to rural areas, with the national average bribe amounting to Ghanaian cedi 348. In 2021, approximately 17.4 million bribes were paid in Ghana, resulting in a total cash bribe amount of roughly Ghanaian cedi 5 billion per year.
This is equivalent to 32.9 percent of the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Education.
