Afrobarometer Report: Ghanaians Believe Govt Lost COVID Cash To Corruption

A new survey from Afrobarometer has revealed that the majority of Ghanaians believe the government performed well in managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but funds intended for the exercise were lost to corruption.

In the April 2022 survey, a quarter of respondents reported that a member of their household had lost a job or primary source of income due to the pandemic.

Few Ghanaians reported that their household received pandemic-relief assistance from the government, while many said the distribution was unfair.

Key findings

▪ As of April 2022, about a quarter (26%) of Ghanaians said a member of their household had lost a job, business, or primary source of income due to the pandemic, while 2% reported that someone in their household had become ill with COVID-19 or tested positive for the virus.

▪ Overall, three-fourths (76%) of Ghanaians said the government had performed “fairly well” or “very well” in managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

o On specific aspects of the pandemic response, smaller majorities expressed satisfaction with the government’s efforts to ensure that health facilities were adequately resourced (61%) and to minimise disruptions to children’s education (59%).

Only half (50%) praised the government’s provision of relief to vulnerable households (Figure 3).

▪ Only two in 10 Ghanaians (20%) reported that their household had received COVID-19 relief assistance from the government, while 80% said they had not.

▪ Only three in 10 citizens (31%) said that COVID-19 relief was distributed “somewhat fairly” or “very fairly,” while two-thirds (67%) said the distribution was unfair.

▪ And more than seven in 10 (72%) believe that “some” (28%) or “a lot” (44%) of the resources intended for the COVID-19 response were lost to corruption.

The Afrobarometer team in Ghana, led by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, interviewed a nationally representative sample of 2,369 adult Ghanaians in April 2022. A sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-2 percentage points.