Paper: Ghana’s Democratic Development Since 1992: Prospects and Deficits

Mr. Chairman,
Guest of Honour, Osaberima Kwasi Atta II, Omahene of Oguaa Traditional Area & Commissioner of the Constitution Review
Fellow Ghanaians
All Protocol duly observed

Introduction

It is a great honour to be invited to give the keynote address for this year’s celebration of our Constitution. The Constitution Week provides a sober moment and a unique opportunity for all Ghanaians to pause and reflect on the rights, freedoms, individual liberties and responsibilities of the citizenry, as well as, the institutions of governance we have collectively designed for ordering our society. It must be seen as a period to take stock of our collective efforts to politically build a democratic, economically prosperous, and socially inclusive state. The ongoing Constitution review provides a new window of opportunities to look backward and forward together in our bid to perfect our social contract. Today April 28, 2011 marks a year less two decades since the people of this great republic overwhelmingly endorsed the 1992 Constitution. In endorsing this Constitution, we did not only affirm our commitment to the principles of democracy and rule of law, we also ushered in a new social contract, bearing in mind that previous such contracts were short-lived. The 1992 Constitution therefore reminds us of what a special and unique people we are. We emerged from an unstable, unpredictable, and uncertain past of division and pain, to embrace the present and began to work for the future together.

Lest we forget, future generations to whom we hope to bequeath this constitution have a right to know how we came to collectively adopt the principles in this document as the supreme law of our land. Occasions of this kind—the constitution week— provides great opportunities to engage in inter and intra-generational dialogue and conservations about the history, principles, values, processes, that culminated in the 1992 Constitutions and its preceding sibling that could not survive yet inspired its survival. Our political situation prior to the Fourth Republic may not reflect the exact hypothetical state of nature described by Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan to justify institutions of modern constitutional government. But conditions of unemployment, illiteracy, destitution, abject poverty, unbridled materialism, and lost of human dignity can foment that kind of state of nature and undermine our Constitutional order. Let us be reminded, that our Constitutional order is a work in progress, and cannot survive half profligate and half desperate.

At age 19 our current Constitution has successfully delivered five presidential elections, five parliamentary elections, five district assembly level elections, three successful change in governments from one party to another; foisted an environment of free expression leading to pluralistic media; and engendered participation through civil society platforms. But 19 years since its inception, the large majority of our people still lay outside the formal structures and operations of the state—in the informal sector—where the government is often seen as a distant abstract entity. It is imperative that we formalize the informal because as long as a large majority of our people reside outside the modern state in terms of public policy and governance, the nation-building envisioned by our early nationalists under the leadership of our first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, and later by the framers of the 1992 Constitution will be far from complete. Formalizing the informal can lead us to realizing the objectives of a solid, democratic, prosperous, egalitarian, and a caring society, because it holds the key to (a) broadening the sources of domestic revenue for socio-economic transformation, and (b) addressing the challenges posed by the legacies of informalism that serve to undermine the efficiency of formal rules and institutions in our overall governance processes.

The Constitution Week

Fellow Ghanaians
We celebrate our Constitution for its symbolism and content. Eleven years ago today, the National Commission for Civic Education took the bold step to commemorate the popular ratification of our Constitution. At the time, the Constitution was only eight years old. Delivering the keynote address on that occasion, Prof. Kwasi Prempeh reminded us that a nation-building process can tremendously benefit from the “invention and celebration of the founding myths and events that serve” to keep alive “in the hearts and minds of a people a sense of their common identity and heritage.” For us, such myths and events must speaks directly to, and are embedded in the history, passionate debates, ideas, processes, sacrifices, rights, responsibilities, and compromises that is now an embodiment of our shared values. We owe it a duty to the current and future generations to inform and teach them the history and the principles enshrined in our Constitution to keep that exemplary touch set ablaze 19 years ago perpetually alive. Nation building is not an event. It is a process. We must incorporate into this process learning mechanisms and strategies that will enable Ghanaians across time and space to appreciate and uphold the Constitution in high esteem. We must endeavour to bring alive to the current and future generations through constructive debates and other learning strategies, the processes and work of the Committee of Experts, Consultative Assembly, and the various Standing Committees that crafted the Constitution we now celebrate. We must use the platforms provided by family, religious organizations, schools, friendship, political parties, old media and new social media to teach the attitudes and values prescribed by our Constitutions. Our people will take active interest in our Constitutional order if they are taught to believe it matters, if they are assisted to acquire oral and other skills of citizenship; if they are equipped with the aspirations and expectations that stimulate and create a sense of belonging.

Fellow Ghanaians
Let me now turn to thematic areas guiding this year’s celebrations.

Corruption

Article 35 (8) of our Constitution mandates governments to “take all necessary steps to eradicate corrupt practices and abuse of power.” As a first step, the constitution established series of institutions including the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the Police Service, the Judiciary and other statutory agencies to serve as frontline service providers for eliminating corruption. For the most part, however, we have focused on corruption among public office holders and neglect the pervasive nature of this practice in the lower stratum of our society. Perhaps, the insidiousness of illegitimately directing public resources to enrich private pockets makes the practice at the level of public office more visible. But corruption is so institutionalized in our society that if you attempt to confront a trotro or taxi driver paying bribe to a police officer, you will verbally be lynched by other passengers who will readily brand you a social deviant. Ladies and Gentlemen, my goal here is not to halo you with bitter memories of being a victim or willing participant in a corrupt practice, but to create an environment to collectively start an honest and introspective conversation on a subject that has eaten deep into the very marrow of our society, and seeks to undermine our Constitutional order.

Those mandated by the Constitution to uproot corruption must provide LEADERSHIP. Our wars on corruption must go beyond mere platitudes. There is no point in having codes of conduct in our public and private institutions, which no one knows about. All our public and private institutions must review and revise their codes of conduct, and raise their visibility and readability profile. We must encourage ethical discourse among all Ghanaians. We must make it a point to constantly sensitize all Ghanaians by way of thorough orientation, with the values and rules we consider as ethical behaviour, and ensure that all prospective employees into our public and private sectors are given specialized training designed to enforce those values. This can be augmented by designing performance evaluation and incentive systems that acknowledge and reward behaviours that fall in line with key values in a code of conduct within any organizational setting. We must simplify our laws on whistle blowing and make them essential part of our daily conversations. We must encourage, embolden and protect Ghanaians to report wrongdoing without fear of reprisals or victimization.

The Media

Our Constitution recognizes the high importance of free press in a democratic society, and mandates the media to “uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people of Ghana” without any interference. We therefore expect the media not only to inform, entertain and educate, but also to actively monitor and provide avenues for discussing the extent to which governments and private sector actors respect our rights to free speech, expression, association, movement, and equal opportunities in employment and education, among others. From humble beginnings in 1992, our media landscape now has over 1000 registered newspapers and magazines, over 200 Frequency Modulation stations, 10 television stations and an ever growing active social media. These together with developments in modern communication technologies like the Internet, emails, cell phones, and blackberries continue to facilitate direct public participation in governance. Thus, the media’s role in our democracy SO FAR is commendable.

However, there remain several challenges. The Ghanaian media has too often allowed social commentators and politicians to use the platforms provided by newspapers, televisions, and FM stations to create unnecessary tension and acrimony. This challenge points to a lack of professionalism and creativity; but media professionalism and creativity cannot emerge from the kinds of deplorable and sometimes dehumanizing conditions under which some of our journalists and other media practitioners are forced to work. Yet our media as an institution is not only growing, it has also acquired an unaccountable power that can be detrimental to the courses of justice and confidence in our democracy, if not well exercise. Often, valuable airtime and newspapers spaces are devoted to sensationalism and personality politics in the name of free speech. Due to these developments, our media has now acquired a new acronym—NATO—meaning No Action, Taking Only.

The National Media Commission can induce professionalism, creativity, and sanity from owners and operators of media outlets in this country through RATINGS, without compromising press freedom. RATING can address most of the challenges facing our media because it will force businesses and Ghanaians to direct the resources to media houses with the highest RATINGS, compel owners of media establishments to hire highly qualified individuals, while sending a signal to existing practitioners that the only way to keep one’s job is to excel. In a well-institutionalized RATING environment, media practitioners and their employers will prioritize regular training and capacity building to improve professionalism, encourage innovation and creativity in a bid to outshine their competitors.

Political Parties

The media is to free press what political parties are to representative democracy. In a democratic system such as ours, political parties are expected to serve not only as a framework for organizing individuals with similar ideational dispositions, but also as mechanisms for aggregating, articulating, and mediating political pluralism. Although political parties are the livewire of successful democracies, in our particular context, political parties can also become a convenient cover for factionalism, unwarranted inter-ethnic suspicion and violence. It is to guard against this, that Article 55 (7) stipulates that political parties prior to registration (a) must ensure that they have at least one of their founding members residing in each of the districts in the country, (b) must not use symbols, emblems, colors and motto with ethnic or sectional connotation, and (c) must have branches in all the regions in the country. Notwithstanding adherence to these provisions, it is common knowledge that political parties in this country persistently draw their support from specific ethnic cleavages. There is also a growing phenomenon of monetization among our political parties, where prospective candidates for public office are compelled to pay exorbitant filing and other fees. These strategies can lead to corruption and a politics of exclusion, which in turn can result in loss of legitimacy.

Our political parties must invest in new ideas if they are to remain relevant. They must work towards distinguishing themselves on the basis of clearly articulated ideas. Ideational investments will help our political parties to devise concrete solutions to our socio-economic problems. Ideas can provide political parties with symbols and concepts with which to frame solutions to policy problems in a manner that will appeal to Ghanaians. Our political parties must shun the culture of impunity, the politics of insults, and allow our political interactions to be guided by politics of ideas. Unless our political parties demonstrate a practical commitment to the issues that matter to us, Ghanaians will remain hostile to the notion of state funding for political parties.

Let the clouds of petty politics hanging over the nation give way to competition of reasoned ideas. We can avoid the kinds of violence that characterized multi-party elections in Kenya, Ivory Coast and Nigeria if we take advantage of the constitution review, to design an inclusive electoral system as a strategy to weaken the incentive structures for post-election violence. In the spirit of nation building and inclusiveness, we can, for instance, decide that a defeated presidential candidate with a specified percentage of votes be allocated a seat in the legislature perhaps to serve as the leader of his party in the House.

Our Constitution makes it clear that the manifestos and activities of political parties must be guided by the Directive Principles of State Policy, which among others provides a broad vision for socio-economic development and nation building. Our political parties must see themselves as agents of nation building by consciously helping to cultivate a culture of national identity, a sense of belonging based on shared values, tradition, history and aspirations. In pursuit of this, our political parties must promote equal opportunity for all, and an ethic of mutual responsibility that equally rejects the politics of entitlement.

Decentralization

The visibility of our state institutions in terms of proximity to the people is fundamental to arresting their confidence in our political institutions, and enforcing the legitimacy of governments. It is in the spirit of this, that Article 240 of our Constitution mandates governments to pursue policies of decentralization. As a concept, decentralization involves the deliberate transfer of resources or political authority from the center of a political unit to peripheral units. Although this sounds like a great strategy for democratic consolidation, in a multi-ethnic country like ours, decentralization can undermine our efforts at nation building if it is not approached with circumspection. We must view decentralization as a process and not an event, and allow that process to be guided by our levels of socio-economic development. It is not for nothing that successive governments since 1992 have been hesitant to support the notion of democratic decentralization under which our District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives are to be elected by the citizenry.

Much as appointing such local level officials by sitting Presidents has provided a fertile ground for political patronage and mediocrity; partisan or non-partisan election of DCEs, and MCEs can create election related ethnic tensions and violence in this country beyond what our resources can handle. But given the importance of decentralization, and the need, at this stage of our development to ensure coherence and harmonization; we can in our collective wisdom retain the appointment of MCEs and DCEs by sitting presidents but insert a RECALL mechanisms that vests the power of removal from office solely in the local people such DCEs or MCEs are appointed to serve. This will not only circumvent the challenges of election related ethnic violence embedded in democratic decentralization, it will also compel MCEs and DCEs to look downward to the people in the local areas in the performance of their duties rather than acting solely at the pleasure of a sitting president.

This strategy will not only prevent decentralization of poverty, it will also save us money, time, and the kind of peace we need in our pursuit of socio-economic transformation. At this stage of our development, it is far better to have a sitting president appoint DCEs and MCEs who can only be dismissed through RECALL by the local people (my proposal); than to have a non-performing— lame duck DCE or MCE still in office because his/her term is not yet over (democratic decentralization); or have DCEs or MCEs that are closer to their appointing authority than the people they are appointed to serve (our current system). Ultimately, the success of our decentralization initiative depends not necessarily on election or appointment of chief executives, but most importantly on human capital (skills), research, financial, accountability, and a drive for local initiative.

Judicial System

Of the three arms of government, the judiciary is the only one that has an organizational profile purely based on professionalism and expertise. It is, perhaps, for this reason that judges who constitute the core of the judiciary are not elected; yet serve as the interpreters of our Constitution and other laws. But like many developing countries, our judicial system also suffers from several challenges including (a) inefficient management of existing resources; (b) perceived lack of independence from other branches of government; (c) a lack of research culture to enable judges and administrative personnel to perform well; (d) incompetent or outdated procedures; and (e) a lack of appropriate or efficient performance monitoring arrangements that serve to adversely impact justice administration. Mind you, neither the application of the laws nor the fundamental rights of the citizens can be adequately protected without an effective, independent and competent judicial system. A well functioning judiciary is essential for development. This is why Article 125 (3) of our Constitution vests the power of legal and constitutional finality in the judiciary.

The judiciary therefore has a critical role in consolidating our democracy. Hence notwithstanding the challenges, our judiciary must always strive to be independent. Judicial independence serves two important purposes. First, it helps in limiting the power of governments, and secondly it protects our rights as individual citizens. When a judiciary is truly independent, its decisions are not only respected and enforced, the institution itself becomes impervious to political influence. But it is important to balance judicial independence with transparency and accountability of the judiciary in a manner that allows our judges to perform their duties by following the highest ethical standards.

We can arrest confidence and trust of the citizenry in our judicial system through a structured public education that allows the public to get a glimpse into operations and practices behind the curtains. This will not only educate the citizenry about how the judiciary works, it will also strengthen our faith in that institution as the citadel of our freedoms. Ultimately, an informed public is less likely to hastily accuse the judiciary of wrongdoing; and can reduce traces of the negative public perception about the judiciary, much of which derives from ignorance and a lack of structured public—judiciary engagements. Similarly, we can infuse transparency and accountability into our judicial system by instituting a simple strategy of lot casting for selecting judges to sit on cases, as well as, for empanelling the Supreme Court as a way of weakening existing incentive structures for personal preferences and discretion in the selection of judges.

Conclusion

In making the opening declaration, “we the people of Ghana”, in the preamble of our Constitution, we affirmed that Ghana belongs to all who live in it—men, women, young, old, workers, middle class, upper class, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists—united in our ethnic, and cultural diversity; and hence bestowed on us “and posterity the blessing of liberty, equality of opportunity and prosperity”. Thus, guided by the Constitution, we must create a society that has equal opportunities for all, in all spheres; political, social, cultural or economic by ensuring that the public policy making and implementation powers vested in the legislative and executive arms of government prioritize quality education, reliable healthcare system, effective housing, dependable old age income security arrangements, not only because they are recognized as fundamental human rights by the constitutions itself, but also for their ability to enhance the overall productive capacity of Ghanaians for socio-economic and political transformation.

The goals of (a) democratic governance, (b) nation-building, and (c) economic development we set for ourselves in the Constitution cannot be achieved without a productive workforce. It is in the spirit, for instance, of making sure our nation does not take for granted public investment education for the purpose of building a highly skilled and knowledgeable citizenry required for the kind of socio-economic and political transformation we envisioned that social rights especially pertaining, but not limited to education and healthcare of Ghanaians are deeply enshrined in our constitution. In recognition of this, Article 36 of the Constitution among others, reminds us that “the most secure democracy is the one that assures the basic necessities of life for its people as fundamental duty, and thus, enjoins governments to take all necessary steps in managing the national economy in a manner that maximizes the “welfare, freedom and happiness of every person in Ghana” through the provision of “adequate means of livelihood and suitable employment and public assistance to the needy.” But enshrining these rights alone, is not enough, we must as a people, acting collectively through the institutions established by the constitution activate these statutory obligations of governments using the processes of public policy making and implementation.

So in the spirit of individual sacrifice for collective good, we must work to fulfill the promise of a prosperous Ghana envisioned by our founding fathers. May I therefore entreat those presently entrusted by our Constitution with the authority of governance to put the collective good above personal interest; invest in the things that will make us a strong and happy people; be bold to innovate and reward innovation; and muster the courage to do what is right no matter how politically unpopular that may be. Let us take ownership over the wellbeing of this country by refusing to submit to cynicism, indifference, apathy, pessimism, and opportunism. Each of us must believe that he or she can make a difference, no matter how little that difference might seem. That little difference here that little difference there will collectively make that big difference we have all been yearning for. And guided by our Constitution, let us march in optimism, working together towards a better future for all by remaining united in our common vision as Ghanaians. For, the things that unite us, are not only dear, they are also more than those that divide us. Thank you and God bless mother Ghana.