GSS trains field officers for Ghana Integrity of Public Services Survey
The Ghana Statistical Service in collaboration with Ghana Integrity of Public Services Survey (GIPSS), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and CHRAJ with a funded support from German government has started training some field officers for GIPSS survey to be undertaken in across the country.
The four-day training exercise takes off from Tuesday 7th December to Friday 10th December alongside with the Anti-Corruption and Transparency (ACT) week launched by the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) on Monday on the theme “Building a Culture of Integrity for Generations”.
The GIPSS provides internationally comparable measures of corruption, support the implementation of policies to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 16.5 (Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms), and generate data that would provide insight into analysing and understanding corruption which would guide evidence-based policymaking and planning.
Some of the collected data from the survey include dominant challenges in Ghana, incidence, frequency and characterisation of bribery and corruption in both public and private services, awareness and effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Agencies, crime, feelings of security and access to justice
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ, Richard Quayson, mentioned some of the importance of collecting data on corruption, the need for the survey to establish the reality behind the perceptions of corruption as well as answering some of the swirling questions around corruption in Ghana.
The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, in his keynote address highlighted on the importance and mandates of GIPSS, its responsiveness to international demands and its complementarity to previous surveys conducted by the Statistical Service that can provide data benchmark data for this survey.
He cited evidence from previous surveys such as the GLSS 7 – Module on Governance, Peace and Security which indicated about 3 in 10 (28.2%) of respondents had experienced in at least half of their engagement with public official the payment of unauthorised money for delivery of service ranging from 51.6% in the Central Region to 11.5% in the Volta Region.
Professor Annim urged the trainees to be ethical, sensitive, and skillful in the discharge to duties and never let the 3Ps – Passion, psychology, Page 2 of 2 and preparedness embody to their work.
He further charged the trainees to practice check and balances to ensure that quality data is generated from the exercise.
The data collection for the survey, which is expected to interview 15,000 respondents countrywide is scheduled to start on 12 December 2021.
Following the ceremony, trainees took the oath of secrecy in accordance with the Statistical Service Act, 2019 (Act 1003) that requires that all data provided by respondents be kept confidential.
The conduct of the Ghana Integrity of Public Services Survey is in accordance with the mandates of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) to provide comprehensive, reliable, quality, relevant, accurate and timely statistical information to guide national development as stipulated in Section 3 of the Statistical Service Act, 2019 (Act 1003).
The organisation’s vision is to be a trusted provider of statistical services for good governance and its mission, to lead the efficient production and management of quality official statistics based on international standards, using competent staff for evidence-based decision-making, in support of national development.
GSS also produces monthly data on important economic indicators such as inflation, Consumer Price Index (CPI), and Producer Price Index as well as population, housing, demographic and economic data at the locality, district, and national levels from routine surveys and censuses.
The statistics generated by GSS can be utilised by a wide cross-section of users including the public sector, businesses, academia, civil society organisations and development partners.
Other high-profile personalities who attended the ceremony includes: Mrs. Abena Osei-Akoto (Director of Survey and Censuses Organisation, GSS). Mr. John Foster Agyaho (GSS, Project Coordinator) and Mr. Charles Ayamdoo (Former Director of Anti-Corruption, CHRAJ), members of the Project Implementation Team, Directors from GSS and CHRAJ, the trainers and trainees.
Source: africaneditors.com/ Eric Nii Sackey
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