Empirically, it is not implausible to associate extreme poverty and perverse inequality to countries with high levels of corruption. Corruption is one of the most destructive impediment to economic and social development. It takes away resources from the common pool and deprives a large population of partaking in the share of the national cake. Despite Ghana’s good governance and democratic credentials, corruption still remains cancerous in our public service and society.

Currently, we can concretely say that corruption in Ghana is not just a mere perception but inherently pervasive in the country as evidenced by the recent exposé in the Judiciary. Corruption in the Judiciary is serious as this organ of the State is expected to adjudicate, preserve and safeguard the laws that protect the citizens. However, if significant members of the bench could easily be compromised then Ghana is in a serious quagmire.

The problem of corruption is now very worrying as different sources of data (both Transparency International and World Bank) rank Ghana higher in the corruption index compared to other group of developing countries. Figure 1 below compares the Graft index for Ghana and other group of countries.

Figure 1: Graft Index in Ghana compared to other group countries.

Source: World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2013

According to Transparency International, corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private or personal gain. They classified corruption as grand, petty and political depending on the pecuniary value and sector of occurrence.  Grand corruption occurs at the high level of state or government with the connivance of leaders or politicians. Petty corruption connotes the abuse of office or entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with the ordinary citizens. While political corruption is the manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure to perpetuate the hold on electoral power and executive control of state resources.

This disaggregation is important because in Ghana, we equate corruption to only politicians. However, petty corruption is rife and this is equally deleterious to ordinary citizens. Political and grand corruption are mostly  construed as perceptions which are not supported with any concrete evidence, in which the surest way to uncover them and produce the evidence for successful prosecutions only through changes in government.

Corruption associated with the provision of common social services is more likely to affect poor people because they are more dependent on government or public facilities for the provision of essential services. Current research on the micro-level impact of corruption on Africa gives strong credence that poor people are more likely to pay bribe than the rich as they have limited options or alternatives for meeting their social needs (c.f.,Justesen and Bjørnskov, 2014).

The economic loss suffered by Ghana because of corruption is enormous, and we cannot develop as a nation if we do not minimize or reduce the incentives for corrupt and rent-seeking activities in the country. Apart from impeding economic growth, development and investments; it also exacerbates the income inequality gap especially as the poor and vulnerable are more adversely affected.Rising corruption also results in decreasing revenues for development as the citizens’ incentives to honor their tax obligations dwindle when they see profligate and ostentatious lifestyles by public servants.

Similarly, corruption stifles the growth of domestic businesses in the country as a result of the unofficial payments or bribes that is solicited from them by government-mandated agencies. This increases the cost of doing business in the country and makes Ghanauncompetitive globally for foreign direct investment (FDI). Many businesses are expected to make unofficial payments to the very agencies that are constitutionally-mandated to promote and control their activities. For instance, the World Bank Enterprise Survey shows that high percentage of firms in Ghana are required to pay bribes in obtaining licenses, government contracts and business permits. Figure 2 below reports that percentage of firms affected in Ghana is relatively higher compared to other countries.

Figure 2: Bribes in Licenses and Permits

Source: World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2013

From the Global Corruption Barometer report on Ghana by the Transparency International (TI), the statistics indicate that more than 50% of the respondents perceived that corruption has increased and significant 35% think it is extreme. Among the different institutions, percentage of respondents perceived the following institutions as extremely corrupt; Police (92%), Judiciary (71%), political parties (76%) and public officials and civil service (59%). This indicates that political/grand corruption is not the only type of corruption that has engulfed the nation.

To show that these statistics are not just perception as we are always told when issues of corruption erupt, a whopping 57% of the respondents also indicated that they or a member of their household  have paid bribe to one of thesepublic institutions. So, we cannot play the Ostrich and pretend corruption in Ghana is all perception. In addition, the Anas exposé in the judiciary proves that we cannot delude ourselves that corruption does not exist in reality.

Successive governments have demonstrated to us, they lack the incentive to fight corruption effectively especially when the citizens are told to produce the evidence. Various anti-corruption agencies such as Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justices (CHRAJ) and Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) have equally been ineffective in combating the corruption menace.

These anti-corruption bodies have shown that their ineffectiveness is not necessarily because of limited resources (especially when CHRAJ engaged in wastage of public resources on hotel accommodation) but rather their lack of autonomy and political will to fight corruption. These bodies can easily be weaned off government support in order to attain the necessary autonomy to fight political corruption as there could many alternative sources of funding. We can also look at the provision in theConstitution which stipulate that the President appoints the board and heads of theseanti-corruption bodies.

Thus, for now theeffective way would be bottom-up approach, where individuals (such as Anas Amereyaw Anas, Manasseh Azure), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and the media must hold politicians accountable to the people by scrutinizing governments contracts even if our parliamentarians otherwise would not effectively play that role.

Focusing on petty corruption which affects majority of the people could be a good starting point as there are many of suchoccurrences around us the ordinary Ghanaians. We pay bribes to obtain Passports, the nurses in our hospital solicitsunofficial payments before they treat us, we offer to pay bribes to the Police (or the reverse) when we commit traffic offences, at the Registrar’s office we pay bribes in the name of facilitating the process, lecturers who take bribe from students to pass them, private clinics making illegal claims from National Health Insurance Scheme,public and civil servants who report to work very late but closes at 3.00pm (in the name of avoiding traffic), etc.If we can all start demanding accountability and transparency from ourselves and the public officials then we have moral ground to demand accountability from the politician.

We have public institutions that have board and management teams, which we can hold directly responsible for corrupt practices rather than quickly politicizing every act of corruption even in semi-autonomous public agencies. However, the President must lead the way and show commitment in the fight as he appoints the board or management of most public institutions. It should not be too difficult to fire and hire at the same time to instill discipline in public service.

Considering the high level of religiosity in Ghana, it is surprising that corrupt activities thrive even when the two main religious groups (Christianity and Islam) all demand their followers live upright and not to engage in dubious deals. Ghana has over 90% religious population of Christians and Muslims. This gives the ground to erroneously assume that the people who engaged in corruption are outside our society.

Thus, our religious leaders also have an immense role to play in the fight against the corruption pandemic. If they can be vociferous and exert the same energy in collecting offerings from members and preach to us that we can equally miss Heaven if we engage in small pilfering, evade tax and acquire wealth through unjustified means then that would significantly lead toa decline in corruption in Ghana.

The writer is Dr. Kwaku S. Afesorgbor, Executive Founder,Centre for Trade Analysis and Development—CETAD Ghana (www.cetadghana.com)