Bribery Epidemic Hits 18% …As More Officials Demand ‘Chop Money’

Nearly seven out of every 10 Ghanaians who encountered bribery situations in the second half of 2025 said public officials demanded unofficial payments before providing public services, according to the latest Governance Series report released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

The report also showed that the number of Ghanaians who actually paid bribes increased during the same period. The percentage of citizens who paid a bribe to access public services rose from 14.3 per cent in the first half of 2025 to 18 per cent in the second half.

The report, which examined citizens’ experiences between July and December 2025, revealed that demands for extra payments increased significantly despite an overall improvement in Ghana’s governance performance compared to 2024.

The findings were presented during the Release of the Governance Series, Wave 3 event organised by the GSS and Three Reports at the Alisa Hotel on Tuesday, August 4, 2026.

Speaking at the event, Government Statistician Dr Alhassan Iddrisu said the data showed that corruption pressures worsened during the second half of 2025, with public officials increasingly becoming the source of demands for unofficial payments.

He explained that the proportion of citizens who reported that public officials requested extra payments increased from 51 per cent in the first half of 2025 to 69 per cent between July and December 2025.

“So the pressure sits at the counter. The problem now is less what citizens offer and more of what officials would ask,” Dr Iddrisu said.

The percentage of citizens who paid a bribe to access public services rose from 14.3 per cent in the first half of 2025 to 18 per cent in the second half.

This means that about one in every six Ghanaians who interacted with public officials paid a bribe during the period under review.

Dr Iddrisu described the situation as a concerning development, noting that although Ghana’s overall governance indicators improved for the entire year, citizens experienced more challenges with bribery in their daily interactions with public institutions during the last six months of 2025.

“The most recent six months, which is July to December 2025, got harder compared to the previous six months, which is January to June 2025,” he said.

He, however, maintained that the country’s wider governance performance recorded progress when compared with the previous year.

“The full year, which is 2025, got better compared to 2024. Both of these stories are true, and that’s the beauty of the six-monthly survey that we do, to be able to look at trends within waves and even compare between years,” he said.

The Government Statistician explained that the Governance Series survey uses the same nationally representative households across all 16 regions of Ghana to track changes in citizens’ experiences over time.

According to him, this approach allows the GSS to measure actual changes in governance conditions rather than differences caused by using different groups of respondents for each survey period.

The latest report was based on interviews conducted with household heads during the first quarter of 2026. The findings focused on citizens’ encounters with public institutions, including their experiences with bribery and requests for unofficial payments during the second half of 2025.

The Governance Series is part of the GSS’s efforts to provide evidence-based information on governance issues and help policymakers understand how citizens experience public services across the country.