Ghana has launched its new National Ethics and Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NEACAP), with President John Dramani Mahama pledging to strengthen accountability, ethical leadership and public participation in government institutions in the fight against corruption.

Unveiling the five-year strategy at the University of Ghana in Accra last week, Mahama described corruption in the country as "a national development challenge" that weakens institutions, discourages investment and erodes public trust.

The leader called for collective effort involving government, civil society, the private sector and citizens, saying the fight against corruption requires the participation of all Ghanaians.

Strong democracy, weak corruption oversight

Often regarded as one of West Africa's most stable democracies, Ghana has enjoyed decades of relatively  peaceful elections and democratic transfers of power.

Yet corruption continues to undermine public confidence across the nation, weakening public service delivery and discouraging investment.

The new action plan seeks to change this by improving coordination among anti-corruption institutions, strengthening oversight, promoting ethical leadership across the public sector and increasing citizen participation in accountability efforts.

It will replace Ghana's previous National Anti-Corruption Action Plan, which had widely been criticized for falling short of its objectives as its implementation remained inconsistent despite an extensive legal and institutional framework.

The launch comes as Ghana continues to make only modest progress in international corruption rankings:

According to the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International, Ghana scored 43 out of 100, ranking 76th globally while remaining above the Sub-Saharan African regional average.

The country continues to trail behind African leaders such as the Seychelles, Cabo Verde, and Botswana.

Transparency International Ghana says the country's performance has stagnated because of weak enforcement of anti-corruption laws, political interference and insufficient institutional reforms.

Billions lost to graft each year

Analysts like Mary Awelana Addah, Executive Director of Transparency International Ghana, agree the country's problems are not based on a lack of anti-corruption institutions but rather on ensuring that these mechanisms are able to operate independently and effectively.

"The corruption problem in Ghana is a very large one. It's been very costly to the state. It is endemic and systemic in nature," Addah told DW.

She explained that corruption had resulted in a deficit of nearly 15 billion euros in financial irregularities identified in the Auditor-General's 2024 report alone.

The scale of the issue directly affects citizens, resulting in shortages of medicines, weak public infrastructure, and the diversion of resources intended for national development.

According to Addah, the new framework places greater emphasis on ethics, measurable targets, independent monitoring and public reporting.

However, she also warned that its success will largely depend on whether political leaders can demonstrate the will to apply the law consistently.

"We have the laws. We also have the institutions. But enforcement remains inconsistent. Sanctions are very weak, and the powerful actors in our system are always insulated from the consequences of corruption," she told DW.

Trust in media also on the line

Journalists are also questioning whether Ghana can translate its commitment to fighting corruption into meaningful accountability.

Speaking at a civil society anti-corruption forum in Accra in March, Executive Director Sulemana Braimah of Media Foundation for West Africa said that Ghana's latest CPI score showed progress had been "slow and uneven."

"The gap between investigative reporting and actual sanctions remains a critical challenge," Braimah said, warning that the failure to hold public officials accountable risked undermining confidence in both public institutions and in the media, if they fail to highlight instances of fraud and corruption.

According to Braimah, the new system has to work in order to ensure the traditional role of media outlets as government watchdogs.

DW's Eric Mawuena Egbeta meanwhile is somewhat hopeful about the new action plan, saying that "lessons are being learned from the previous plan, which … did not achieve great results."

"Persons within civil society [involved in] the fight against corruption have played some role this time around in putting the plan together."

'We want to see corrupt officials prosecuted'

Governance analysts say the launch of another national strategy reflects the growing recognition that corruption continues to undermine public finances, economic development and confidence in state institutions.

Whether Ghana's latest anti-corruption strategy succeeds will largely depend on whether its mechanism will result in the investigation and prosecution of corrupt government officials to ensure that public institutions operate independently.

Egbeta stresses that the plan does "not inspire a lot of confidence" in broad sections of civil society, though he highlights that the fact that it is a five-year year plan and not a ten-year plan also means that it will be up for evaluation sooner.

Addah echoes a similar sentiment, saying that confidence will only grow if and when Ghana's citizens can finally see change for themselves: "We want to see prosecutions go through."

Her appeal to government is to make sure that the mechanisms enforcing and monitoring the anti-corruption initiative are completely independent and free of government oversight.

Egbeta agrees that the plan needs to implemented without government interference, stressing in particular the fact that shifting political positions should not interfere with the fight against corruption:

"When [politicians] are in opposition, they will see everything that is wrong with corruption, and they will use this a whip against the party in government. But when they assume the reins of power, the narrative changes."

Edited by: Sertan Sanderson