“The State is too personalized” – CDD-Ghana

Frederick Asiamah

In the recent past, we in Ghana have seen the presidency make some landmark decisions. In some instances, those decisions raised eyebrows. Those that immediately come to mind are President Kufour’s withdrawal of government appointees to certain district assemblies on the morning of the confirmation of chief executives for fear that they would scuttle the process. President Mills also undertook blanket dissolution of all boards of state-owned enterprises and sub-vented agencies.

Perhaps, these are reasons why Mr Kojo Pumpuni Asante, Head of Programmes, CDD-Ghana, believes the president has too many powers. Thus he concludes that the degree of power that the President wields is a major reform issue.

To him, the state is too personalized and things need to change. He argues that the state is run on neo-patrimonial basis and this puts a lot of power in the hands of the presidency. This is risky because it is open to abuse.

He recommends therefore that the state needs to be run on rules, accepted values and principles.

The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit research-based and policy-oriented think tank in Accra, Ghana. Founded in 1998, the Center’s mission is to promote democracy, good governance and the development of liberal economic environment in Ghana in particular and Africa in general.

It adopts major strategies including research and publication on issues relating to democracy, good  governance and liberal economic reform; the monitoring, analyzing and documentation of the progress of democratic development in Ghana and Africa; and the promotion of transparency, accountability and integrity in the exercise of administrative and political discretion, and in the allocation and use of public resources.

Apart from that, it engages in the promotion of access to information and data relating to matters of public interest; the provision of training to and networking with key public and civic institutions of democratic governance; the defense of operational autonomy and helping strengthen the oversight capabilities of public and private watch-dog institutions; the education of the public about their rights and responsibilities under democratic and constitutional rule; and the promotion of peace-building and democratic conflict management in Ghana and the West Africasub region.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The CDD-Ghana has a track record in good governance and democracy. “We pride ourselves in doing high quality research work” and “every activity is based on empirical research work,” Mr. Asante stated.

On the other hand, not having adequate human resource that can break down technical work into the simplest of languages to aid understanding by ordinary people constitutes a weakness on the part of the Centre. Also, the Centre’s funding mechanism is not constant. Another weakness is that demand for more good governance work outstrips the Centre’s supply.

High demand and more clamour to understand good governance provide huge opportunity for the Centre to expand its frontiers.

The kinds of threats confronting CDD-Ghana relate more to the way people comprehend the Centre’s “specialty and focus.” According to Asante, people’s “pace of understanding the complexity of democracy” is on the low side. In other words, people do not usually appreciate the value of the type of work the Centre does. But financial instability also constitutes a threat.

Stakeholders/Partners

Rather than continually reinventing the wheel, the CDD encourages cooperation and dissemination of information between it and various partners, thereby improving efforts to promote democracy and development.

“Every targeted audience can be stakeholders,” says Asante. Besides, partners are both state and non-state actors. The partners include institutions like the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, the National Commission for Civic Education, Electoral Commission, the National Labour Commission, the National Media Commission, Parliament, the Action on Disability and Development, the Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF)-Ghana, the Ghana Integrity Initiative, and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition.

Besides, a variety of international organizations have also worked closely with CDD-Ghana, including private, public and non-governmental organizations. These include the Ford Foundation and the Friedrich Naumann Foun