Ghana Marches On 13yrs Of Freedom

Accra, April 20 GNA - Civil Society organisations in a survey indicated that Ghanaians enjoy enormous political rights under the Fourth Republican dispensation and that there were no noticeable restrictions on people's right to participation in political processes.

It said the country's multiparty democracy appeared to be gearing towards a two-party system being the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP), which were dominant although they had no distinct philosophies and ideologies yet they had large followers. The survey which was conducted by the Ghana Association of Private Voluntary Organisations in Development (GAPVOD), the umbrella organisation for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Ghana identified overall weak structure in civil society organisations.

"The success of an electoral turn over from an incumbent party in government (NDC 1992-2000) to another party (NPP 2000 to date) is a great manifestation of political contestation and competition." Dr Nicolas Amposah, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Ghana, who led discussions in launching the report at a two-day workshop in Accra, noted that Ghana scored 1.4 per cent on the Civil Society Index (CSI).
Quoting from a research finding, Dr Amponsah said the socio-economic and political extent was also not conducive for scoring just 1.4 per cent on the CSI.

However, in spite of the relatively poor structure of the CSI in terms of capacity and resource, Ghana's civil society managed to live by high values and achieved significant impact in the society, he said. With the theme: "Civil Society in a changing socio-economic and political context" the research was to examined the state of civil society in Ghana mainly its structure, the environment within which it operated, core values and its overall impact.

Dr Amponsah said the first dimension of the CSI project examined the involvement; measuring the breath and depth of people's participation, proportion of citizens' engagement in civil society activities in Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

Dr Amponsah said Ghanaian CSOs had not been very active in non-partisan political action, and that only 15 per cent of CSOs members had engaged in some form of non-partisan political action.

He said diversity in Ghana's CSOs was not quite encouraging, significant social groups were underrepresented and largely absent in leadership adding that activities in Ghana were largely concentrated in urban areas to the neglect of the rural areas where they were mostly needed.
He said the weakest spots of CSOs in Ghana was the financial, and technological infrastructure hence the score of 53 per cent of Regional Stakeholders Survey indicating that CSOs had inadequate financial resources to achieve their goals.
According to him the same majority saw their technological infrastructure base as weak yet CSOs were noted to be more resourceful in human resources.
"Corruption is the most worrisome social canker and there is general perception that corruption is widespread, and therefore officials and agencies are notably ineffective and corrupt." Basic freedom such as expression, association and religion were guaranteed and respected, press freedom was upheld but socio-economic development was unpleasant as the indicators pointed to widespread poverty.
Dr Amponsah noted that civil society had been active and successful in influencing public policy; the sub-dimensional indicators of CSOs impact included influence on human rights and social policy. He called on the media to be accurate in their reports saying "the media is also a civil society and they should, therefore, help in redeeming the civil society's image".
He said the country could not survive without the role of the media since it was a good facilitator of dialogue hence the need for it to analyze, examine, assess and hammer on both good and bad sides of issues and policies. 20 April 06