Some civil society organisations (CSOs) and youth groups in northern Ghana have underscored need for accountable governance to ensure prudent management of the country’s economy and improved living standards for the people.
They called on the youth to speak out on governance issues by demanding accountable governance instead of taking entrenched political positions.
They were speaking at a regional forum in Tamale, dubbed: “Citizens Engagement and Input Gathering for Sustainable Economic Recovery”, which was organised by the Economic Governance Platform, an NGO, with support from Oxfam in Ghana.
The participating CSOs and youth groups, which were drawn from the Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper East, and Upper West Regions, included Norsaac, Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development, Northern Girl Initiative, Savannah Women Integrated Development Agency – Ghana, and the Northern Regional Youth Parliament.
The rest were Activista Ghana, RUWA Ghana, School for Life, Graduate Students Association of the University for Development Studies, hereafter Ghana, representatives of traditional authorities amongst others.
The forum was aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the country’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme with detailed practical reasons for cyclical IMF bailouts and their implications on national development, especially in various development sectors.
It was also to collate participants’ input on pragmatic approaches to resolve the cyclical IMF bailouts for the country.
The participants further called for the enforcement of laws to make bribery and corruption unattractive in the country, especially amongst duty-bearers.
Mr Abdul Karim Mohammed, Coordinator, Economic Governance Platform, in a presentation on the background of the IMF bailout during the forum, said it was unfortunate that the country had sought IMF bailouts for 17 times since independence.
He attributed the situation to fiscal indiscipline and failure to transform the economy from export of raw materials to processed goods and expressed the need for citizens to show more interest in the source of funding for political parties to help tackle corruption in the country.
Mrs Beauty Emefa Nartey, Executive Secretary, Ghana Anti-corruption Coalition, was not happy that whilst the citizenry was passionate about elections, they paid little attention to how the elected officials managed the affairs of the country.
She called on the citizenry to deploy all legitimate measures to ensure that duty-bearers were accountable to enhance the overall development of the country.
Professor Franklin Nantui Mabe, Senior Lecturer, Department of Agricultural Resource and Economics, University for Development Studies, called for the enforcement of the Political Parties Act on funding campaigns to ensure that political parties did not spend excessively on elections.
Mrs Rukaya Yaro Deliman, Executive Director, Northern Girl Initiative, called for a more integrated approach to managing the country’s debt situation to ensure opportunities for girls and the youth.
