Ghanaians still believe the Police Service is the most corrupt institution in Ghana, according to the 2019 Global Corruption Barometer.
The report notes that 59 percent of Ghanaians feel this way, with judges and magistrates viewed as the second most corrupt institution per 38 percent of Ghanaians.
The survey was executed by Afrobarometer in 34 countries and covered 47,105 adults between 2016 and 2018.
Non-Governmental Organisations and religious leaders came out of the survey with better credibility as only 14 percent and 17 percent of Ghanaians respectively view them as corrupt.
Of the top ten institutions surveyed, which included police, business executives judges and magistrates, Ghanaians feel they have all become less corrupt over the last four years.
The police, for example, were viewed as corrupt by 64 percent of Ghanaians in 2015.
Sixty percent of Ghanaians feel the Akufo-Addo administration is doing a good job of fighting corruption; a massive jump from four years ago, where only 25 percent of Ghanaians felt the government at the time was putting up a good fight against corruption.
Thirty-three percent of Ghanaians feel corruption has increased in the last 12 months while 36 percent say corruption has decreased in the last 12 months.
The report was launched by the Ghana Integrity Initiative today [Thursday] where the programmes manager at GII, Mary Addah, urged the government to adequately resource key anti-corruption institutions.
“There must be a monitoring framework in place and enforced to ensure that these institutions live up to expectation.
“We are recommending that the state should increase efforts towards educating citizens on the Whistleblower Act. Civil society is doing its best but the state should be seen to be doing a lot of education.”
Ghana, in general, saw an improved performance on the corruption perception index earlier in 2019.
Ghana’s score increased by a point to 41 in 2018, from its 2017 score of 40. This left Ghana with a ranking of 78 out of 180 countries; an improvement from 2017’s rank of 81.
Ghana has averaged 38.75 Points on that index between 1998 and 2017.
The country’s performance, according to the GII, the local chapter of Transparency International, was impacted by a number of factors including policies and initiatives by the government.
