Bribe payments increased to 18% in late 2025 – GSS

Requests for unofficial payments to access public services in Ghana rose sharply in the second half of 2025, with nearly 7 in 10 citizens who encountered bribery reporting that public officials demanded extra payments, according to new governance data released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS).

The survey also found that the proportion of Ghanaians who paid a bribe increased from 14.3% in the first half of 2025 to 18% in the second half, meaning about one in six people paid a bribe to a public official during the period.

Government Statistician Dr Alhassan Iddrisu, speaking at a Governance Series event organised by Three Reports and the GSS on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, said the findings showed conditions worsened over the last six months of 2025 even though the country’s overall performance for the year improved compared with 2024.

“The most recent six months, which is July to December 2025, got harder compared to the previous six months, which is January to June 2025,” he said.

“Over the last six months of 2025, the share who paid a bribe rose from 14.3% in the first half of 2025 to 18% in the second half of 2025. That is about one in six paid a bribe to a public official.”

He said requests for extra payments increased even more sharply, rising from 51% in the first half of 2025 to 69% in the second half.

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

Despite the deterioration in the second half of the year, he said the broader annual trend remained positive.

“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 said.

The Government Statistician said the survey tracks the same nationally representative households across all 16 regions, allowing changes in governance indicators to reflect real changes in people’s experiences rather than differences in survey samples.

The findings cover citizens’ experiences between July and December 2025 and were collected during the first quarter of 2026 through interviews with household heads.