Anna Bossman, Ghana’s ambassador to France, has called on the government to resource anti-graft bodies in order to win the war against corruption in Ghana.
Speaking to Beatrice Adu on Asaase 99.5 Accra’s TownHall Talk show on Friday (24 March 2023), the former boss of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) said the government and institutions must be firm in sanctioning persons implicated in corruption or corruption-related offenses.
“Because I am from the anti-corruption, human rights environment, I always want anti-corruption institutions to be very well resourced to have what it takes to promote the integrity the country needs or wants,” Bossman said.
“Fighting corruption starts from the very basis of society,” she added. “Right from childhood, because corruption is not just political; it is also a social condition.
“Sometimes it is not for the lack of the will of the institutions or their leaders but it’s just because they may not have the required support that they would wish,” Bossman said.
Listen to Anna Bossman in the audio clip attached below:
Roughly GHC5 billion paid to public officials in 2021
A total of roughly GHC5 billion in bribes was paid to public officials in 2021, a survey by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has shown.
According to the survey, the average bribe paid is GHC348 or roughly US$44, based on the 2021 spot exchange rate.
The report carrying these findings from a maiden national survey is titled Corruption in Ghana – People’s Experiences and Views. It also offered breakdowns of how susceptible individual areas of the public service were to bribe-taking and how prevalent bribery was by region, according to the survey respondents.
The survey found that the region with the highest prevalence of bribe-taking was Western North (53.4%) while it was least prevalent in Bono East (11.8%) and Bono (11.9%).
Respondents found the police, immigration and customs services most susceptible to taking bribes, mirroring other surveys such as the Corruption Perceptions Index.
“Given that roughly 17.4 million bribes were paid in Ghana in 2021, the average bribe size of GHC348 results in a total of approximately GHC5 billion paid in cash bribes to public officials in 2021,” the survey said.
To put the numbers in perspective, this corresponds to almost one-third (32.9%) of the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Education.
Size of bribes
The size of the average bribe paid in Ghana further differs greatly between urban and rural areas. At GHC404, the average bribe in urban areas is approximately 1.5 times larger than the GHC265 average in rural areas.
The share of small bribes (under GHC50) is larger in rural (47.3%) than in urban areas (31.7%), whereas the share of larger bribes (above GHC100) is higher in urban (47.8%) than in rural areas (35.2%). An interesting finding of the survey data is that not all bribe-payers are willing to pay the actual amount requested by the public official.
Roughly four out of every ten bribe-payers reported negotiating the value of a bribe paid, with men being 1.3 times more likely to negotiate the value of a cash bribe than women.
CHRAJ, in partnership with the GSS and with support from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), conducted the first comprehensive, nationally representative population survey on corruption in Ghana.
The fieldwork involved a survey of 15,000 respondents across the country, covering all regions and both urban and rural areas.
The main objective was to collect evidence-based information on forms of corruption affecting the population of Ghana in order to determine the prevalence of corruption and its prevailing typologies.
Reporting by Fred Dzakpata in Accra
Asaase Radio 99.5 broadcasts on radio via 99.5 in Accra, 98.5 in Kumasi, 99.7 in Tamale, 100.3 in Cape Coast and on our affiliates Bawku FM 101.5 in Bawku, Beats FM 99.9 in Bimbilla, Somua FM 89.9 in Gushegu, Stone City 90.7 in Ho, Mining City 89.5 in Tarkwa and Wale FM 106.9 in Walewale
Tune in or log on to broadcasts online: www.asaaseradio.com, Sound Garden and TuneIn
Follow us on Twitter: @asaaseradio995
Live streaming: facebook.com/asaaseradio99.5. Also on YouTube: Asaase Radio Official.
Join the conversation. Call: 020 000 9951 or 059 415 7777. Or WhatsApp: 020 000 0995.
#AsaaseRadio
#TheVoiceofOurLand
