Good governance reduced to slogans

African leaders have reduced the concept of Good Governance to “slogans” without thinking about its wider implication, which is an improvement in the quality of life enjoyed by citizens of the continent, Joyce Arye, Former CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines has said.

“Bad governance is denying the continent and its people the needed development in road infrastructure, in education, in health care delivery, in a boost in agriculture, and the provision of potable water for all,” she said at the opening of the 2013 Summer School on the Extractive Industries in Accra.

“Our continent has been exploiting several natural resources and yet we don’t seem to have entered the stage of significant and exponential gains, and the reasons are ascribed largely to the inefficiency of our governance system.”

It is time, she said, for African leaders to think inter-generationally -- that is to consider meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations, which requires that they initiate the right policies and take actions that will maximise the benefits of the continent’s resources.

“If governance includes the exercise of authority in managing the resources of a country, then I would like to extrapolate that Good Governance should be about making sure that this exercise of power and authority helps to improve the quality of life enjoyed by all the citizens of a nation,” she noted.

In spite of the appalling leadership the continent has known, however, it still has enormous potential to enjoy rapid development from its numerous resources, she added, calling on the continent’s leadership to “stand up and be counted” by basing their leadership on the principles of good governance.

“They should ensure that stringent measures are instituted to reduce wastage, corruption and ineptitude; and ensure efficiency in the use of the revenues generated from our natural resources.” The two-week summer school, which is the fourth edition, is being jointly organised by the Revenue Watch Institute and the German Development Cooperation and is being attended by participants from a broadened list of resource-rich countries in Anglophone Africa.

The theme for this year’s programme is Governance of Oil, Gas and Mining Resources. Participants will be taken through various training modules on the subject matter in a bid to equip them with potent advocacy tools.

“Everybody knows that Africa is endowed with natural resources, but it is also challenged in terms of how they are managed. But the question is: what do we need to do? Our contribution is that we need to ensure that citizens and citizen groups are equipped to understand the issues so that they can hold their governments to account.

That is what this training is about,” Emmanule Kuyole, Africa Regional Director of Revenue Watch, told journalists on the sidelines.