Ghana’s anti-corruption fight stagnates – GACC report reveals public distrust

By Opesika Tetteh Puplampu Ada, July 18, GNA – Ghana’s fight against corruption remains stagnant despite several years of state and civil so...

By Opesika Tetteh Puplampu

Ada, July 18, GNA – Ghana’s fight against corruption remains stagnant despite several years of state and civil society interventions, the State of Corruption Report 2024 by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) has revealed.

The report, which evaluates the country’s corruption performance from January to December 2024, showed that citizens continued to express deep dissatisfaction with efforts to root out corruption, while institutional safeguards appeared to be weakening.

The report revealed that Ghana scored 42 out of 100 on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2024, maintaining the same score for the fifth consecutive year.

The country ranked 80th out of 180 countries, showing no significant improvement since 2019.

GACC interpreted this stagnation as a signal of systemic inertia and a lack of serious reform in the country’s anti-corruption architecture.

“More worrying, the Afrobarometer Round 10 survey captured an increase in public distrust toward key public institutions.

In 2024, the Presidency and Parliament, which were once perceived as among the least corrupt institutions in 2005, emerged as two of the most distrusted public bodies.

The survey showed that majority of Ghanaians now believed that “most or all” of the people in these institutions are corrupt”.

It added that this reversal in public perception should worry any government that was serious about democratic accountability, because it signaled a crisis in public confidence in the highest offices of the State, which undermined efforts to build public support for the anti-corruption agenda.

Another key finding of the report was the increasing fear among citizens to report corruption, stating that between 2017 and 2024, the proportion of people who said they feared retaliation for speaking out against corruption increased from 26 per cent to 46 per cent.

It attributed this rise in fear to the perceived politicisation of anti-corruption institutions and inadequate legal protections for whistle-blowers.

The report also found out that citizens’ evaluation of the government’s fight against corruption reached one of its lowest points in the history of Afrobarometer surveys, as only a small fraction of respondents rated the government’s performance as “fairly well” or “very well,” with the majority believing the administration was handling the issue badly or very badly.

The GACC argued that while institutions such as the Office of the Special Prosecutor and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) continued to make efforts, the broader system appeared resilient to change.

It said legislative reforms such as the Conduct of Public Officers Bill and stronger campaign finance laws, which were recommended in 2023, remained unpassed by the end of 2024.

“The lack of implementation of key reforms raises questions about the political will to tackle corruption meaningfully,” Dr John Osae-Kwapong, a technical contributor to the report, said, adding that “Talk alone is not enough. Ghanaians want to see action”.

The report called on the new government to build on the momentum of the 2024 elections, where corruption was a central campaign issue, and make the fight a national priority.

This must include not just prosecution of offenders, but also systemic reforms that would enhance transparency, civic education, and institutional independence.

The GACC’s 2024 report concluded by providing a sobering reflection of a country at a crossroads, one where corruption was still seen as a top national problem, but efforts to confront it were not matching the scale of public concern.

It warned that the window to rebuild public trust was narrowing and said 2025 must not be another lost year.

GNA

Edited by Laudia Sawer/ Christabel Addo

Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).