Ghana’s anti-corruption institutions must provide feedback to citizens who report bribery and publicize enforcement actions to rebuild trust and encourage reporting, a human rights leader said following the release of a government report showing sharp declines in corruption complaints.
Awal Ahmed Kariama, executive director of RISE-Ghana, said the country’s anti-corruption system suffers from a broken “feedback loop” that discourages citizens from reporting corruption even when they experience it firsthand.
“Once you don’t give the person that feedback, it creates a culture where people become, exhibit some level of apathy,” Mr. Kariama said during the regional dissemination of the Ghana Statistical Service’s Governance Series Wave 2 Report in Bolgatanga. “So going forward, they will not continuously report these issues.”
The report found that nationally, only 5.8 percent of bribery victims reported incidents to official or non-official anti-corruption institutions, down from 15 percent in the previous survey wave. In the Upper East Region, not a single person reported corruption incidents in 2025, compared to 13.5 percent who reported the previous year.
Mr. Kariama outlined three critical reforms needed to reverse declining reporting rates.
First, anti-corruption institutions must conduct public education campaigns to inform citizens that both giving and receiving bribes is criminal and teach them which agencies handle corruption complaints.
“Generally, people do not know which institution to report to,” he said. “People feel that when they report, action is not taken. And whenever any action is taken, that feedback is not given to the people.”
Second, institutions, including the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, must establish systems to provide regular updates to people who file corruption complaints, even if investigations take months or years.
“We need to see certain aspects of the action being taken,” Mr. Kariama said. “And then it becomes like a tsunami. It will encourage more people to report issues like that, suspected or real perceived corruption.”
Third, authorities must publicize penalties imposed on corrupt officials to demonstrate that the system works and deter future corruption.
Mr. Kariama emphasized that completing what he called the “loop” reporting, investigation, action, publicized penalties, and feedback to the reporter, is essential to building citizen confidence.
“Otherwise, we are aware, and as they have said, it’s a canker that is preventing a lot of due process and meritocracy in our system,” he said. “But why are we continuously not reporting it? Because we don’t have the confidence in the fact that it will be resolved.”
The governance report, released by the Ghana Statistical Service on Nov. 20, surveyed people across Ghana to track experiences with corruption as part of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal indicators.
While overall bribery declined from 18.4 percent to 14.3 percent nationally, the frequency of repeat bribery increased sharply. Among those who gave bribes, 24 percent reported doing so five or more times, up from 6.9 percent previously.
Favor exchanges — non-monetary forms of corruption — increased from 4.4 percent to 15.9 percent nationally. In Upper East Region, favor exchanges surged from 10.4 percent to 32.7 percent, the highest increase recorded anywhere in the country.
Mr. Kariama noted that Ghana already has strong legal protections for whistleblowers through the Whistleblower Act, which guarantees anonymity and safety. He said fear of retaliation is not the primary barrier preventing people from reporting corruption.
“The issue of fear is not there because there are provisions for the reporter to be safe and be protected,” he said. “But why are we not still reporting? I think it’s about the level of ignorance, the lack of interest, and then the issue of apathy in terms of whether action will be taken or not.”
The report measures actual corruption experiences rather than perceptions, tracking SDG Indicator 16.5.1, which monitors the proportion of people who paid bribes to public officials in the previous 12 months.
Across Ghana, the Volta, Upper West and North East regions recorded the highest reporting rates at 18.1 percent, 14.1 percent and 12.1 percent respectively. The lowest reporting occurred in Upper East Region at zero percent, followed by several other regions with single-digit reporting rates.
RISE-Ghana is a human rights organization based in the Upper East Region that works on governance, women’s rights, child protection and sustainable development issues.
Source: a1radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Bolgatanga
