Public Officials Demanded Bribes from Nearly 7 in 10 Ghanaians in Late 2025 – GSS Report

Public officials demanded bribes in Ghana at an alarming rate during the second half of 2025, with nearly seven in every 10 citizens who encountered bribery situations saying they were asked to make unofficial payments, according to a new Governance Series report released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

The findings, presented at a Governance Series event organised by Three Reports and the GSS on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, reveal that corruption pressures intensified even though Ghana recorded an overall improvement in governance indicators compared to 2024.

Government Statistician Dr Alhassan Iddrisu, who presented the report, said the proportion of citizens who reported that public officials demanded unofficial payments increased significantly from 51% in the first half of 2025 to 69% in the second half of the year.

According to him, the data suggests that the growing challenge is no longer driven primarily by citizens offering bribes voluntarily but by increasing demands from public officials.

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

The report also found that the percentage of Ghanaians who actually paid bribes to access public services rose from 14.3% during the first half of 2025 to 18% in the second half, indicating that approximately one in every six citizens paid an unofficial payment to receive a public service.

Despite the rise in bribery experiences, Dr Iddrisu noted that Ghana’s overall governance performance continued to improve when assessed over the full 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 explained.

He said the Governance Series survey tracks the same nationally representative households across all 16 regions, allowing the Ghana Statistical Service to measure genuine changes in citizens’ experiences over time rather than variations caused by different survey samples.

The latest Governance Series findings are based on interviews conducted with household heads during the first quarter of 2026, covering their experiences between July and December 2025.