It has emerged from a survey conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in partnership with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) that a total of GH¢5 billion was paid in bribes in 17.4 million incidents by Ghanaians from all walks of life to public officials in 2021.
The bribes were essentially to influence the officials to bend the rules in favour of those offering the bribes for services that are otherwise rendered for free.
Even though the report is for 2021, whatever it captures applies to years before it and those following it unless something radical and urgent is done to serve as a deterrent.
The contents of the 137- page report entitled 'Corruption in Ghana: People's Experiences and Views' cannot be said to be strange because the public already know the forms of bribes and which category of public officials receive or solicit them.
If the public know all these, it means that the state officials are not covered yet nothing is done to check the situation because those expected to do so, including the police and the Executive branch of government, are themselves neck-deep in it.
The report provides 22 categories of public officials who mostly solicit bribes and it is sad that not unexpected, the police top the list at a rate of 53.2 per cent, the judiciary comes seventh with 22.3 per cent, National Intelligence Bureau 8th with 21.2 per cent, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies 11th with 12.7 per cent, Ghana Armed Forces 13th with 10.3 per cent, and Executive branch of Government 18th with 5.6 per cent.
We have singled out here these categories of bribe takers because they are expected rather to take bribe takers to task, yet they themselves have become frontliners in the crime and that is very unfortunate.
No wonder bribery and corruption keeps growing in the country.
As we have already stated, the contents of the 2021 UNODC report are not strange because the elements and the behaviour offenders (bribe takers) being assessed are already known.
It is only the size of the amount and the number of incidents involved that are mind-boggling.
Besides, our worry is that it is not everyone paying the bribe in any form is ready to do so but are coerced.
It is unfortunate that public officials put impediments in the way of those seeking their services in order for them to pay bribes.
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That shows that the public officials are forcing others to give out money they could have used for something else.
This means these public officials are depriving others of their hard-earned resources in terms of money for their selfish gains without any check on them.
For a relatively few corrupt public officials to exploit GH¢5 billion from members of the public in just one year should be something that must concern all public-spirited Ghanaians.
We think the country cannot progress as expected when bribery and corruption is allowed to persist for the benefit of a few people at the expense of the majority.
We think the best way to kill the canker is to have behavioural change and this must be hammered by the church and the mosque.
The other way is for the executive arm of government to outlive dishonesty and lead the crusade to check bribery in the country.
Moreover, the country needs a stringent probing system to check bribery and corruption and such system must be made to work devoid of that Ghanaian habit of always pleading for wrongdoers.
