Compact citizens engagement: Participants identify solutions to problems facing the country

Participants at the Compact Citizens Engagement in Techiman have identified problems with and made recommendations towards fiscal responsibility, health action, and national planning for the transformation of the country.

The engagement, a collaboration between the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Africa Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), formed part of a series of engagements to fashion out a compact document for the 'Ghana Compact' initiative.

The compact document will involve an aggregation of recommendations made by Ghanaians for adoption by authorities as a guiding principle for development, with the aim of ensuring constitutional, political, and economic reforms, as well as setting long-term visions and goals for the transformation of the country.

A member of the Commission, Hajara Rufai, described the compact as an implicit agreement between the citizens of Ghana and the government, adding that ACET will review and document challenges identified, as well as recommendations made, for the attention of the government.

A senior analyst at ACET, George Boateng, said Ghana at the time of independence was one of the richest countries in Africa. He said our inability to process our raw materials like cocoa, cashew, bauxite, and gold has led to the loss of potential revenue for development while contributing immensely to unemployment.

He said the social compact if duly adopted and made legally binding on successive governments, holds the key to the social, economic, and political challenges facing the country.

Setting the tone for discussions on health, the Nkoranza South Municipal Director of the Commission, Marian Owusu Dufie, identified some challenges facing the health sector in Ghana in the areas of service delivery and access to essential medical supplies, vaccines, and technology.

She also mentioned the workforce, information systems, and the financing of universal health coverage as other areas that need to be improved.

Taking his turn, the Bono-East Regional Director of the Commission, Joseph Kwaku Yeboah, who made presentations on both fiscal responsibility and national planning, presented some key issues concerning how the government can increase revenue, reduce financial loss due to corruption, as well as the misuse and wastage of public funds.

He also touched on how the government can manage spending and the national debt.

He also identified the lack of consistency in national development planning, the lack of legal backing for the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in implementing the national development plan, the lack of financial autonomy of the NDPC, and the fact that it is under-resourced as some of the problems facing the effective development planning of the country.

In group work, participants identified possible solutions to five pertinent questions that cut across the issues discussed at the engagement.

In her closing remarks, the secretary to the Commission, Lucille Hewlette-Annan, thanked participants for the in-depth knowledge they exhibited, adding that ACET will ensure their input is included in the Ghana Compact Document.