President John Mahama has said there is no justification whatsoever for any public official to collect bribes under his administration.

Presenting the state of the nation address to Parliament, Thursday, the President said the country has come a long way from the days when the state pretended to pay its public officers, to a period of significant salary adjustment.

He said if "illegal tips" were taken by officials as a result of poor salaries in the past, that justification is no longer valid because of the introduction of the single spine salary structure.

The president said bribery and corruption appear to have littered every facet of national life; a phenomenon he finds appalling.

"In every facet of life we encounter corruption at the ports when business people under declare the value of goods to avoid paying the right duties to the state.

"Drivers who drain fuel from government vehicles. Some officers take bribes from motorists for traffic infractions and I could go on with several many examples," he said.

He does not understand why public officers would resort to taking bribes for services they are paid to render.

In every facet of life we encounter corruption at the ports when business people under declare the value of goods to avoid paying the right duties to the state.

John Mahama said for every corrupt act in any public institution is an official who exercises oversight responsibility, and those officials will now be held responsible.

"If these were our private businesses we surely will not accept the conduct we see exhibited?" he said, adding, "Ghana is bleeding" from all these acts of corruption.

"Leadership at all levels must take responsibility," he indicated.

In a presentation that lasted for close to two and a half hours the president touched on a number of issues including health education and water delivery.

On education, he said the country will from the 2015/16 academic year begin the implementation of the free SHS policy.

The policy is set to cover over 340,000 day students, he stated while glowing over the resit policy for basic education students.

According to him, a total of 1181 candidates had the chance to resit their exams this year, candidates who would otherwise have had their education truncated.

The President admitted the country was facing a huge power crisis and outlined a number of policies that are meant to increase the generation capacity to some 3,000 megawatts.

Throughout the presentation, the Majority hailed and praised the President while the opposition members who were in black attire were oddly quiet for the entire period of the presentation.