The proportion of Ghanaians exchanging favors—including sexual acts—for public services has more than tripled in six months, rising from 4.4 percent to 15.9 percent, according to a new government report that has prompted calls for stronger protections for vulnerable women.
The Ghana Statistical Service’s Governance Series Wave 2 Report, released during African Statistics Day commemorations, revealed that while overall bribery declined from 18.4 percent to 14.3 percent between late 2024 and mid-2025, the category of “exchange with favors” showed alarming growth across all demographic groups.
In the Upper East Region, the increase was particularly steep: favor exchanges surged from 10.4 percent in Wave 1 to 32.7 percent in Wave 2, the highest jump recorded in any category across the region.
Nationally, women were found to exchange more favours in return for public services.
“It’s very unfortunate as a country if women, who I would say would be the majority of the population in this country, would have to exchange favors for jobs or for services in the public sector,” said Priscilla Nyaaba, Executive Director of the Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana, a civil society organisation working on youth empowerment and reproductive health issues.
The report, which surveyed more than 5,640 respondents across Ghana from January to June 2025, tracks citizens’ actual experiences with corruption rather than perceptions, measuring progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 16.5.1 on bribery and good governance.
Nyaaba attributed the rise in favor exchanges to Ghana’s increasingly competitive job market, where limited opportunities leave women—particularly those from vulnerable backgrounds—susceptible to exploitation by officials in positions of power.
“Sometimes some of our sisters are compelled just because they need to put food on the table for their children,” Nyaaba said in an interview with Asaase News following the report’s release in the Upper East Region. “They are compelled and they find themselves in some of these situations and they will have to exchange their bodies for favors in terms of job seeking or services that they go seeking for, for instance promotion and other publis services.”
The data showed that favor exchanges more than tripled in both urban and rural areas between the two survey waves, with increases ranging from 2.5 to 4 times among females and males respectively. While money remained the predominant item given as bribes—accounting for 72.1 percent in Wave 2—the sharp rise in favor exchanges represented a troubling shift in the nature of corruption facing Ghanaians.
The report also documented that valuables, land or other goods showed upward increases from 1.4 percent to 3.7 percent between the two waves.
Nyaaba emphasized that many women facing demands for sexual favors have worked for years and deserve promotions based on merit. “If you have worked for a number of years, it’s your right, your entitlement to your promotion,” she said suggesting that the some of the respondents may have responded affirmative to either giving in or being asked to return favours for the aforementioned issues. “Why should I go and exchange my body for a promotion and a work that I have done as a citizen of this country?”
She called on women to report such incidents rather than remain silent, noting that institutional failures to act on previous complaints may be contributing to underreporting of corruption.
The Wave 2 report showed that contact with public officials increased significantly across all demographic groups. The proportion of females and males with at least one contact with a public official rose from 50.8 percent to 75.4 percent, and 58.3 percent to 73.7 percent respectively between the two waves.
Among those who gave bribes, the frequency of repeat payments increased dramatically. Nearly a quarter—24 percent—gave gifts five times or more in Wave 2, three times higher than the 6.9 percent recorded in Wave 1. For females, giving gifts five or more times increased from 5.2 percent to 21.2 percent; for males, from 7.5 percent to 24.8 percent.
More than two-thirds of males—76.7 percent—reported giving gifts to public officials compared to 23.3 percent of females, following the same gender pattern observed in Wave 1. More than twice as many urban dwellers—69 percent—reported giving gifts compared to rural dwellers at 31 percent.
The Motor Traffic and Transport Division of the Ghana Police Service remained the institution most associated with bribes, though its share declined from 61 percent in Wave 1 to 51.9 percent in Wave 2. Other frequently cited institutions include Police General Duties, the Passport Office, and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority.
Nyaaba urged government to carefully examine the top 10 institutions identified in the report and implement capacity-building programs for officials while establishing clear sanctions for those who abuse their positions of power.
“People must be sanctioned as well because if you are a public official and you are entrusted in a power position, you shouldn’t also abuse that power because you have the authority to make things happen and then you take advantage of people, especially the women,” she said.
The amounts paid as bribes showed a downward trend, with 85.4 percent of monetary gifts falling below 500 Ghana cedis. The proportion paying 1,000 cedis or more halved from 15.6 percent in Wave 1 to 6.6 percent in Wave 2, though the Upper East and Ahafo regions recorded the highest payments above 1,000 cedis at 19.1 percent and 18.4 percent respectively.
Direct requests for bribes from public officials decreased from 51.3 percent to 38.6 percent, while indirect requests dropped from 18.4 percent to 12.3 percent. Third-party requests fell from 5.2 percent to 2.8 percent.
The Youth Harvest Foundation Ghana, which Nyaaba has led since 2018, works across the Upper East Region on issues including sexual and reproductive health rights, child marriage prevention, and youth empowerment. The organization has implemented programs in partnership with international development partners including the GoalKeepers Accelerator Fund and the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education.
The report was released during the 35th commemoration of African Statistics Day, observed annually on November 18 under the theme “Leveraging Innovations in Data and Statistics to Promote a Just, Peaceful and Prosperous Society for Africans.”
Source: Asaase News
