Ghana Police most prone institution to acts of corruption – NCCE Survey

The Ghana Police Service is the most prone state institution with the tendency to engage in acts of corruption, a survey conducted by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has established.

It showed that the Judicial Service, the Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and the Ghana Education Service, in that order, were also prone to acts of corruption.

The survey also identified the SIC Insurance Company, the Military, and the Narcotics Control Board of Ghana as less prone to acts of corruption, the NCCE survey made available to the Ghana News Agency at Tema has established.

The NCCE survey conducted under the Accountability, Rule of law and Anti-Corruption Programme (ARAP) sampled 4,220 Ghanaians between 20 to 29 years in 2020 using; purposive, systematic, and simple random sampling techniques, from 108 selected districts.

It focused on citizens’ awareness and knowledge of corruption, its causes and effect in the country.

The findings, corroborated by an initial base-line study in 2017 and the end-line survey, conducted in 2020, found that a higher proportion of the respondents representing 70.3 per cent believed that there was a strong linkage between one’s place of work and exposure to act of corruption.

With respect to places to report cases of corruption, the report indicated that 57.3 per cent and 57.9 per cent of respondents in the baseline and end-line study respectively cited the Ghana Police Service as the institution they would go to report any perceived act of corruption.

“This is against the backdrop that the same institution is perceived as the most prone to corruption in the country,” the report pointed out.

The survey explained that it was normal for the people to consider the police as the first point of call to report act of corruption, irrespective of the fact that they were prone to corruption.

The survey established that police personnel were more visible and the only institution in the country mandated to handle wrongdoings or criminal acts.

Unfortunately, however, the report indicated that more than one-third of the respondents thought the identity of persons who reported cases of corruption were not often well protected by anti-corruption agencies.

The study found that corruption eroded the development of the country, increased poverty levels, led to the lack of basic social amenities, increased the debt of the country and led to poor road networks sequentially.

The study found that a key determinant to addressing the phenomenon of corruption in the country was to offer security protection to whistle-blowers and not to expose informants.

The ARAP is an initiative that began in 2016 intending to promote good governance and support national reforms to enhance accountability and strengthen anti-corruption efforts across the country.

The programme was instituted through an agreement between the European Union Delegation and the Government of Ghana in partnership with strategic national stakeholders including; the NCCE.