Private legal practitioner, Kweku Paintsil, says government must take steps to address the level of corruption associated with the delivery of public service by state institutions.

This follows a corruption-related report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in partnership with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

According to the report, the Ghana Police Service is the most prone to bribery among all public officials, recording an alarming prevalence rate of 53.2%.

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) followed with bribery rates of 37.4% and 33.6% respectively.

The Lands Commission, DVLA and Passport Agencies placed 4^th, 5^th and 6^th on the list.

Subsequently, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey visited the Passport Office in Accra where some officials were accused of extorting money from Ghanaians.

Speaking in an interview with JoyNews, Mr Paintsil said the Foreign Affair Minister’s outrage during her tour of the Passport Office is experienced by most Ghanaians and foreign investors when accessing public service.  

“The frustration that the Minister expressed with regards to obtaining a passport is the same thing when you go to Registrar General. (It is the same) when your friend investor who sits in America comes to do business in Ghana and is able to see that this thing is supposed to run through three weeks and this is the total cost of it but when he goes to the ground, it doesn’t work that way.

“Go for land valuation, when you want to stamp a single document, you will go and they will tell you that on normal circumstances this thing is supposed to take three weeks but if you are able to find a way and put weight on paper we can get it for you in three days. And if you don’t do the three-day deal and leave it for three weeks, by three months you are not going to get it.

“So these things are happening in all kinds of institutions and places where we are suppose to get things according to certain time lines so what the Minister said is just the tip of the ice berg,” he stressed.

On his part, anti-corruption campaigner, Vitus Azeem believes public servants and service providers at the various institutions can be prevented from taking bribes and engaging in corruption if time lines or strict measures are put in place.

“People can do the work but they don’t want to do it because we have not put in place measures that will make them effective. So we need to set timelines for the staff. In a day, you have to process a certain number of passports. If you are not able to do that then you lose your job. We need effective monitoring and supervision and we need measures in place.

“We have an express passport system, you go and pay at the bank and yet the express even after three months you don’t hear from them at all. You keep going and they keep tossing you up and down because somebody is benefitting from it," he explained.

Touching on his personal experience at the Passport Office in Accra, Mr. Azeem said management of the facility must prevent non-staff and hawkers from idling around since they mostly engage in the illegality.

“I came one day to the Accra Passport Office to change my passport because it had expired.

"When I entered a lady told me to go and come back in the afternoon because they are busy… and I said no, this is just a renewal so why do I have to go and come back.

"I left her and went upstairs to one of their Assistant Director’s office, he took my passport, and gave me two days to come back for the renewed passport.

"If you have nothing doing in the passport office, don’t come and sit around there because they are the people making those arrangements, including those who pretend to be selling there.

“Once a woman confronted me and asked if I am coming for a passport and that if I give her two thousand (Ghana Cedis) she will get it for me. I left her and went away,” Mr. Azeem narrated.

He stressed that while digitizing the process is necessary it is not enough.

“...because there are people who are still running the process, even manipulating the system, always saying the system is down. You go to an office and always the system is down, even banks,” he added.