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Inspector-General of Police, George Akuffo Dampare has officially responded to a recent research report that found the Police as the most corrupt public institution in the country.

In a five-page letter titled ‘Police Administration’s Response to your Corruption in Ghana Research Report,’ and addressed to the three institutions concerned; the police chief punched holes in procedural and analytical processes employed in the survey.

Per its findings, the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Immigration Service and Ghana Revenue Authority personnel topped the list of officials who take bribes with a percentage point of 53.2%. 37.4% and 33.6% respectively.

But IGP Dampare said the Police Service upon a thorough analysis of the report found that “the research and its findings are heavily challenged and corrupted from both the academic and practice point of view.”

Some of the major reasons cited are the categorization of institutions, wherein the Police are considered as a single entity, and other institutions have their officers disaggregated, an example being the GRA where tax officials are separated from Customs officials.

The Police also questioned why and how other institutions of state that also deal regularly with the public are left out challenging further why the two government entities that conducted the survey – Ghana Statistical Service and Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) did not include their institutions.

The statement also questioned the quality assurance criteria of the research and computation of prevalence rates as well as the lack of disaggregation of some of the percentages.

“You also indicated that about five billion Ghana cedis was lost to corruption during the period of your research and we would like to know how much of this was police related,” the statement read in part.

The statement also wondered why the research failed to give specific recommendations before pointing to the fact that the research may have been impacted by historic pervasive stereotyping of the Police Service.

“The Service has almost now become the default choice for such research and has therefore encouraged a deep-seated public stereotype over the years. This stereotype may easily influence respondent choices and it is there fair to expect that you factor it in assessing the validity of your findings,” it added.

The Police Service said it was responding to the survey formally because issues of perception clearly run very deep in society nowadays.

“As we have all now come to accept, perception tends to be more powerful than reality and therefore we have no choice than to share our position on this matter,” the statement concluded.

Aside from the GSS and CHRAJ, the other institution involved in the survey were the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).  According to the research, more than 17.4 million bribes were paid in 2021.