By Vanessa Adjei
The Ghana Statistical Service, GSS in collaboration with the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, CHRAJ has launched the 2021 Ghana Integrity of Public Services Survey in Accra.
The survey will focus on areas such as Characterization of Bribery and Corruption in Public and Private Services.
Delivering the keynote address, Government Statistician and Chief Executive of GSS, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim said the survey is critical, as it will provide comparable measures of corruption and aid the implementation of policies to achieve Sustainable Development Goal Sixteen.
He said the results will guide evidence based policy making and planning.
The 2021 Ghana Integrity of Public Services Survey is to provide comprehensive, reliable, accurate and timely statistical information to guide national development. It is also to reduce corruption and bribery in all forms.
According to the Chief Executive of the Ghana Statistical Service, Professor Samuel Kobina Anim, the data to be collected will include awareness and effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies, crime, impact of security on the citizens and access to justice.
“We are doing this exercise in direct response to the 16 Sustainable Development Goals that is to substantially reduce corruption in all forms. This survey touches on areas to look at whether people in this country have clear minds, opinions, attitudes that suggests that its occurrence is something that we take a challenge or it’s something that is passive”.
Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Richard Quayson advised trainee field officers to be focused and ethical in their undertakings in order not to compromise the integrity of the data to be gathered.
“It is very easy to hire marks when it comes to corruption perception, because the least negative information can spike off and everyone will be saying that corruption is so pervasive. So if you compromise the integrity of the data it will affect the quality and the integrity of the whole exercise. We are depending on you going to the field, if you fail in your duty you will fail this nation”, he noted.
Trainees took the Oath of Secrecy in accordance with the Statistical Service Act 1003 of 2019 that requires that all data provided by respondents be kept confidential.
The survey which involves 140 field workers and 20 supervisors is supported and funded by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC.
The data collection for the survey is scheduled to commence on the 12th of December, 2021.
