Local town halls better than website in accounting to the people – Patrick Stephenson

Head of Research at Imani Ghana, Patrick Stephenson, has said there is a more practical way the government of Ghana can account to citizens rather than doing so through an online portal, www.deliverytracker.gov.gh, that Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia relaunched on Tuesday.

During a Town Hall Meeting at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Science in Accra, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia after recounting the successes of the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo administration in the area of infrastructure launched a portal to assist the general public get information on those projects.

Although, Patrick Stephenson believed that the creation of the website was a step in the right direction, he said the government could have adopted a better approach to ensure enough transparency.

He suggested that the various district and municipal assemblies could have been organizing town hall meetings at the local levels to engage the people on plans of the government as well as executed projects.

This he said, would have afforded the citizens a direct access to authority and make them feel part of the decision-making process rather than resorting to a portal that can fail due to internet challenges.

He said on the Fact Check segment on the 3FM’s Sunrise Wednesday August 19 that “why are we not doing Town Hall meetings for MMDCEs? Why is Dr Mahamudu Bawumia launching a portal?

“Why is it difficult for the MMDCEs to tell the people in their communities that we have built a road? Why are we now centralizing that communication?..

“You only go to them that now there is some portal so they should go and check if the project is there or not, and, you expect that it will generate some interest from the citizens.

“It may generate the interest but I think there is a better way, I think there is a better way to reverse-engineering this process such that they will be a bit more transparent and more accountable to the programme design and implementation process of the country.”

During the Town Hall meeting, Dr Bawumia pointed out that since 2017, the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has initiated 17, 334 infrastructural projects in this country,

“Of these, we have completed 8,746 and there is 8,588 ongoing,” Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said.

He further revealed that the Akufo-Addo administration is adopting a two-way approach towards infrastructural development in the country.

This approach makes it possible to cover all persons in the country under the project.

Dr Bawumia told the gathering, among which were ministers of state and other dignitaries, that: “Our focus has been to provide infrastructure for all. That has been the focus. And our approach to infrastructural development in Ghana has been two-fold.