Some civil society organisations have expressed doubts about a report released by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) which described Ghana as the “rising star” of Africa.
The report revealed that Ghanaians are becoming healthier, better educated, more politically enfranchised and freer to express their views more than any other African country.
[contextly_sidebar id=”5Ezy8TbdRNUrHbbG5M0SbllNsN4L0lhI”]The report, which was launched at a forum in Accra on Thursday said “the acceleration of human development in Ghana over the last 10 years also suggests that increased voice can indeed contribute to improved provision of health and education services. Although the country still faces major challenges, including limited improvements in the quality of basic services and rising inequalities, its progress across multiple dimensions of well-being has been outstanding.”
Increasing political voice highly exaggerated
But speaking at the launch of the report, Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Vitus Azeem insisted that the issue about Ghana expressing their political views has been over exaggerated.
He said I believe “largely political voice expressed through elections has been very successful, of course we have had peaceful elections but when it comes to other forms of political voice, such as demonstrations, press conferences, actions by political parties, demands by civil society organizations, think tanks, this has been very weak, this has not been very successful…it has not yielded any positive results.”
Mr Azeem further stated that the “…report is highly debatable and controversial,” since “both side of the political side will take it around. Politicians from the NDC side will praise the report and even claim credit for the reported progress that has been made and of course the NPP will most likely rubbish it and deny most of the claims.”
Also speaking at the programme was President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe.
He suggested that Ghana’s constitution should be amended to ensure that Ghanaians properly take part in the governance system.
“So you can have a situation where a lot of people are politically active in terms of voicing their demand and opposition but at the same time when the political class gets into office, because of the design of our constitution, it creates an executive system which is an overbearing one and virtually does everything…you don’t necessarily see that partnership between the elected and the electoral college. So for me the design of our political system…suggests that you can say what you want and if you are lucky you get freebies.”
A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Richard Anane who was also at the programme ascribed the successes chalked to policies implemented by previous governments adding that “all of us must appreciate that the nation has really made some strikes in some sectors and that cannot be downplayed.”
“I also want us to recognize that the endeavors of previous governments as well as their deliberate policies with the cooperation of the people have enabled this strides to be actualized. So what we see of Ghana today is a combined effort by all the previous administration as well as the good people of the nation.”
Click here to read ODI’s full report
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana