Jonah tells politicians to pay attention to development

Mr Kwesi Jonah, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), has expressed concern about concentration of political parties on elections instead of contributing to national development.

He said this during a campaign forum on Multi-Party Governance (MPG) and Constitutional Reforms held in Bolgatanga on Thursday.

The forum, organized by IDEG and the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI), brought together representatives of political parties, traditional and religious leaders, security agencies, civil society organizations and the media.

It was aimed at galvanizing the support of the public to push ahead MPG and constitutional reforms of the country.

Mr Johan said political parties had become election machines paying little attention to the formulation of public policies to address development problems, leaving no time for political parties to engage in development discourse.

He said it was against that background that IDEG and the CFI, among their proposals for the MPG and Constitutional Reforms, were advocating for the introduction of a mandatory annual conference for political parties to discuss national development issues and make recommendation to the government.

Mr Jonah, a former head of the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana, also mentioned setting up a Multi-party Commission which would be separated from the Electoral Commission (EC) to regulate the parties whilst the EC handle solely issues pertaining to elections.

He said his outfit and the CFI were also proposing specific period of time for all elections in Ghana, including political party elections to be conducted at the same time so to save time to enable parties concentrate on issues pertaining to national development.

Major-General Nii Carl Coleman (Rtd), Chairman of the Civic Forum Initiative, said the MPG and Constitutional Reforms would help address certain challenges that occurred during presidential and parliamentary elections and mentioned the 2008 and 2012 elections as examples that nearly disrupted the peace of the country.

He said governance systems had also weakened public institutions through politicization and attributed it to the “winner take all” syndrome, saying the proposed new reforms would help address the problem.

Mr Seth Abloso, CFI Member representing the Trade Union Congress, appealed to stakeholders who attended the forum to sensitize their members on the advantages of the proposed (MPG) and Constitutional Reforms.