The latest Afrobarometer Survey has named the Ghana Police Service as the most corrupt institution in Ghana.
This comes barely a week after findings from a joint study conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), into corruption in public institutions ranked the Service as the most corrupt in the country.
The Afrobarometer survey released in Accra, on Tuesday, also cited the Office of the Presidency and Parliamentarians as institutions perceived to be corrupt.
The findings, presented by Dr Edem Selormey, Director of Research, Centre for Democratic Development (CDD)-Ghana, were the second round of release of the Round 9 of the Afrobarometer survey and focused on trust in institutions, corruption and political party financing.
The report said while 65 per cent of Ghanaians interviewed perceived the Police as the most corrupt, 55 per cent pointed to the Office of the Presidency as the second most corrupt, with Members of Parliament (MPs) following with 54 per cent.
The report also noted that perceptions of corruption among public officials and public institutions increased compared to 2019.
More than three-fourths, representing 77 per cent of Ghanaians said the level of corruption in the country increased “somewhat” or “a lot” over the past year, a 24-percentage-point jump compared to 2019.
In assessing the risk of retaliation for reporting corruption, majority of Ghanaians said they could not report corruption without fear of retaliation.
Fewer than one-third, that is, 30 per cent of Ghanaians believed that people could report corruption without fear of retaliation, a decline by 4 percentage points compared to 2019.
On trust in public institutions, the Ghana Armed Forces, religious leaders, traditional leaders, and the courts were identified as the most trusted.
Despite this, trust in institutions declined between 2019 and 2022, notably, in the presidency, which declined by 25 percentage points.
The survey, which had fieldwork conducted between April 4 to April 20, 2022, had a representative sample of 2,400 adult citizens where respondents were randomly selected for face-to-face interviews in the language of their choice.
The sample was distributed across areas in proportion to their share in the national population.
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan, non-profit survey research network that provides reliable data on Africans’ experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life.
So far, eight survey rounds in up to 39 African countries have been completed since 1999 with Round 9 surveys currently underway on the continent.
The survey is aimed at giving the public a voice in policy making by providing high-quality public opinion data to stakeholders
