Accra Governance Dialogue ends

Accra, Nov. 15, GNA - The two-day Accra Governance Dialogue ended on Wednesday with participants calling for increased financial resources and logistics to governance institutions to enable them to serve as checks on abuse of executive power and to ensure accountability. They held that the future of Africa lay in the renewal of good governance practices but argued that the power currently wielded by the executive at all levels of the political ladder posed a major threat to democratic governance.

The participants, therefore, called for the exercise of political will at the topmost level of political decision-making to allow the governance institutions to work to improve on the situation in the country.

The Governance Dialogue initiated by 93Daily Graphic=94, a mass circulation newspaper, was to create a socio-political platform for international and local experts, academia and journalists to dialogue on governance issues in Africa.

"Consolidating Political Stability in Africa for Accelerated Growth" was the general theme of the dialogue, which also sought to contribute to the development and entrenchment of democracy and good governance in Ghana, West Africa and Africa as a whole.

Participants from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria took part in the forum.

Addressing the closing session, Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, said democracy was gradually being entrenched because the nation was building on its past experiences.

He said it was necessary for Ghanaians irrespective of their political affiliations to set a common agenda as to how the country needed to progress.

This, he said, was important to allow any political party in power to pursue the goals set by the people. Mr Asamoah-Boateng also called for the deepening of the decentralisation process by pursuing vigorously an agenda that would economically empower the rural areas with viable enterprises to fight poverty.

Mr Kwame Gyekye, Chairman of the Board of Graphic Communications Ghana Limited, said the Dialogue would be an annual affair to instil good practices of governance across the African Continent.