General News of Sunday, 8 February 2015
Source: Kwakwa, Martin
Prominenet Ghana-based think tank Imani Centre for Policy and Education says it has identified a lack of critical thinkers in Ghana as the main cause of problems confronting the nation.
Imani CEO Frank Cudjoe said if Ghana had had leaders and experts who could think critically to find practical solutions to issues of importance, the nation’s development would have made a huge headway almost 60 years after independence.
Mr Cudjoe was speaking in Sydney in an interview with Martin Kwakwa on Australian government-owned radio station SBS.
“The most pressing problem Ghana faces is dearth of critical thinkers. We are a country and a people who are not interested in holding elected officials and other people in authority to account,” he said.
“The challenge we face is to identify and nurture activists who will subject issues of public importance to critical thinking and come up with practical solutions.
Mr Cudjoe is in Australia as guest of the Australian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He will visit several other cities including Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Kalgoorlie.
He played tourist in Sydney on the weekend and he said he was struck by the beauty, orderliness and discipline he had witnessed in all places he had visited.
“I was on Sydney harbour earlier today, and I couldn’t believe how the place operated. It’s such a beautiful city, and I’m very grateful I’ve had the chance to see Australia.”
Earlier, Mr Cudjoe met a cross-section of the Ghanaian community in Sydney and gave them a round down of the role of Imani in Ghana’s socio-political development.
In the radio interview, he was asked if Imani would be interested in taking up the issue of an unfair electoral system in Ghana where individual votes did not carry equal value.
“There are many constituencies in Ghana where about 15,000 votes can elect an MP. In some other constituency, a politician needs to win about 120,000 votes to get into parliament. That’s not fair. Is it?” Mr Kwakwa asked.
Mr Cudjoe agreed there was a strong case for a better system of representation, adding that the Electoral Commission must be made to provide answers.
“Imani will look at taking this issue up,” he said.
Source: Martin Kwakwa
Sydney, Australia