The Director of Research at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Dr John Kwakye wants flagbearers in Ghana to be assessed based on the standards used for politicians in the United Kingdom (UK).
In his view, this will raise the level of the quality expected.
A new report in the UK released by the Constitution Unit – co-authored by the Unit’s Alan Renwick, Meg Russell, and James Cleaver and Ben Lauderdale, Head of the UCL Department of Political Science – found that most voters believe stronger mechanisms are needed to ensure politicians follow the rules, with four out of five saying the current system needs reform so that politicians who do not act with integrity can be punished.
The research found overwhelming support for stronger independent regulators, with a majority wanting an independent regulator to be able to launch its own investigations into alleged ministerial wrongdoing.
The wide-ranging report looked at survey responses from more than 4,000 people who were representative of the UK voting age population, conducted in August and September last year during the final stages of the Conservative leadership contest.
In a post on his X platform, Dr John Kwakye stated that “Let’s grade our political contestants by the same standards they are using for the UK candidates.
Dr John Kwakye however observed that the presidential candidates in Ghana are making good policies ahead of the 2024 general elections.
He notes that they are promising economic transformation, lean government, fiscal discipline, and natural resource ownership, among other things.
Ahead of the general elections, the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has promised to ensure 100% Ghanaian ownership of mineral resources if elected into power.
This commitment stems from his observation that the current framework of Ghana’s mining sector creates the perception that Ghanaians do not have full ownership of the country’s minerals.
Bawumia articulated this promise during his inaugural regional tour, commencing in the Eastern Region, where he engaged in discussions with religious leaders on April 29, 2024.
“I am going to refocus our paradigm for natural resource management. For the most part, Ghana has not maximised the benefits of our natural resources.
“Since the days of the Portuguese in the 15th century, gold has always been taken out of Ghana. We haven’t benefitted much from our natural resources; I am going to change that paradigm. I am going to bring a bigger focus on ownership of our natural resources.
“It is as if right now we don’t own our natural resources. I believe that if we do the exploration; and we are going to empower our universities and the geological service department to do the exploration, once we explore that we have seven gold belts that we haven’t yet discovered. Once we have explored and we know that the gold is here, the new policy is going be that the ownership of those resources will be one hundred per cent owned by Ghanaians,” he stated.
Dr Bawumia’s counterpart in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Former President John Dramani Mahama also promised, among other things, to run his administration with not more than 60 ministers and deputies if re-elected as president in 2024.
“I shall assemble and operate the leanest but most efficient government under our fourth republic. We will reduce, significantly, the size of the government. As I announced in my Ghana We Want address at UPSA late last year, I will form a government of less than sixty (60) ministers and deputy ministers of state,” he said when he launched his campaign in Ho on Thursday, March 2, 2023.
Dr Kwakye says that these policies are good however he wondered whether they would deliver if elected.
In a post on his X platform, Dr Kwakye said “The presidential candidates seem to be proposing good policies: economic transformation, lean Govt, fiscal discipline, simplified and low taxes, natural resource ownership and value-addition, maximising the use of our resources and capacities, etc. But, will they deliver?”
