Professor Henry Kwasi Prempeh
STAKEHOLDERS DURING a regional dialogue in Sunyani have expressed the urgent need for political parties to adopt manifestoes which emanate from the people and how to solve them going into the 2020 general election.
Thus, ‘The Manifesto Project” developed by the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) through research was launched in Sunyani to enable political parties to tap into it and develop their own manifestoes for discussion.
Participants included political parties, media organizations, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), civil society organizations, peasant farmers association, market women, among others, discussed 10 thematic areas in the document on governance, economy, agriculture, extractive industry (oil, gas, mining) social protection and marginalized groups.
The rests are Education, Health, Security & Public Safety, Transport and Covid-19.
Addressing the participants, the Executive Director of CDD- Ghana, Professor, Henry Kwasi Prempeh, said the time had come in Ghana’s democratic development that political parties have to follow holistically policies and programmes they put in their manifestos when they come to power.
He said some of the manifesto promises never see the light of day or are poorly implemented and more so some promises political parties make are not actual problems or major problems facing the people in the various communities.
According to him, political campaigning should be conducted on problems identified by the people themselves based on research and solutions must be found to them.
“The people must come out with their own problems for political parties to adopt. The parties themselves have come to the realization that they will be taken for granted if they conduct their campaign on propaganda rather than issues. Thus, the NDC came out with the Green Book cataloguing its achievements while the NPP also came out with Ghana Beyond Aid, among other documents.
The NPP further set up special ministries to monitor and evaluate their implementation, but that is not enough. The people must owe and monitor their implementation.”
On her part, the Bono Regional Director of the NCCE, Doris Ggongbo, who was the chairperson, said the document came at the right time and called on all Ghanaians to contribute to it since it is open to revision and inputs.
FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani