Let’s reform public institutions to address deficiencies in democracy — Dr Osae-Kwapong
The Project Director of the Democracy Project, a political research institution, Dr John Osae-Kwapong, has called for reforms in public institutions to help address some of the signs of retrogression in the country’s democracy.
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The suggestion is premised on a research project he conducted which seeks to promote, strengthen and safeguard democratic governance in West Africa. The research, dubbed: “The Democracy Project,” indicated that Ghanaians have lost trust in the public institutions and don’t find them responsive to their basic needs, thus revealing a drop in the interest in democracy among the citizenry.
Dr Osae-Kwapong, who is also a fellow at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), said it had, therefore, becomes necessary to reform public institutions to improve their quality to be responsive to the needs of Ghanaians.
The Democracy Project
He said this during a presentation of the project in Accra yesterday. The event brought together stakeholders, including policy makers, civil society groups and activists to disseminate the outcomes and conclusions drawn from the project.
The project, which was funded by the West Africa Democracy Solidarity Network (WADEMOS), seeks to identify, create awareness and promote solutions to the challenges facing democratic governance in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Institutional reformation
“Our institutions haven’t lived up to their expectations particularly, with the efficiency with which they address public problems.” “We must start focusing on how we can reform some of these public institutions by either rethinking some of the code of conduct and others to help improve their quality and address some of the signs of retrogression that we are seeing in our democracy,” Dr Osae-Kwapong said.
For instance, he said some reformations such as changes to standing orders of the Parliament had the potential to change the way parliament does business and improve it. Also, he said leading justice reform by the Chief Justice would help to improve the judiciary and change the wrong perception Ghanaians had about the courts.