The Programmes Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mary Awelana Addah, has observed that hospitals and health centers, in general, have become places where bribes exchange hands in Ghana.
She said though the Ghana Police Service ranks high among institutions perceived most corrupt, the health sector is also becoming known for the canker.
Ms Addah made this known in an interview on TV3‘s News 360 on Wednesday, July 20.
She was commenting on the recent findings of a survey on corruption conducted by the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
One of the findings of the survey noted that an estimated GH¢5 billion dropped in private pockets within the public sector as bribes.
The Ghana Police Service, the findings also noted, continues to be the foremost public institution perceived most corrupt.
The GII Programmes Director, however, observed that this may not come as a surprise to many but there are other institutions that are coming up rather strongly.
“You realised that [with] health institutions, citizens said they engaged with health institutions even more and they pay more bribes there,” she pointed out to host Paa Kwesi Asare.
“So, it is not like they are saying that because citizens encounter the police on our roads, it is there they pay bribes.
“They encounter nurses, they encounter doctors, they encounter teachers, they encounter utility service providers, they encounter tax agents, they encounter people at the lands department and some of these bribes, if you quantify are even more than what the police [take] but yet still the police came up tops.”
By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|3news.com|Ghana