Afrobarometer blue

It’s probably time to call a truce on the afro-barometer debate and move on to “other important things” as some have suggested.

Lots of ink has been spilt over the accuracy and precision of the afro-barometer report which basically assesses the performance of government and state institutions around a number of thematic areas. 

The government accepts none of its finding. And it would be highly surprising if any government comes out in the open and lends credibility to a report which essentially considers its performance a failure. It’s not going to happen. 

A breakdown of the report are as follows: a large majority of Ghanaians gave ratings of “fairly bad” or “very bad” to government’s performance in managing key macro-economic indicators such as the economy (72%), improving living standards of the poor (76%), creating jobs (76%), keeping prices down (81%)and narrowing gaps between the rich and poor (76%). 

Government, its commentators as well as its sympathizers have described the report as flawed based on its methodology, timing of release and its relevance. 

A deputy communications minister has asserted that the report is flawed because the research was undertaken at a time when the general economic conditions were completely different from the prevailing economic situation. 

And some have gone further to describe the report as a ploy to discredit the government and place the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in a positive light.

But none of these should surprise us. No one likes bad ratings and bad grades. Looking back at my days in primary school, I only presented the examination papers that I fared well in at home. I did not take any of those papers in which I scored low grades to my parents obviously because it did not place me in a good light and sent an indication of the poor use I was putting their investments to. 

The papers with the bad grades were usually carefully shredded into fine pieces. 

But all these ploys were momentary as the true grades will subsequently reflect themselves in the final school report for the particular academic year. 

And let us not for a moment make the mistake that it is a phenomenon associated with the ruling government. Even the various Members of Parliament (MPs) were not the least amused when in 2010 the Africa Watch Magazine came out with a rating scheme which essentially sought to grade the performance of MPs. 

Those who were scored A’s were never heard on air. It was primarily those within the “F” stock who were heard beating dust out of the report. One MP asserted: “Most of parliamentary work is done at the committee level, which is not open to the public so how can people who are not privy to what goes on at the committee meetings rate us.” 

The responses to these surveys reveal some rather grave challenges likely to confront us as a nation. And it has to do with the sanctity of research results which are basically conducted as basis for development projects, planning and also to constitute an impact assessment of some kind.

I do not think there would be the need to split hairs over the importance and essence of data collection in fostering growth and development. This is an expensive venture. It takes a lot of time as well. Without such valuable results and information from the field, we would be engaging in a fool’s errand especially with respect to how we apply our resources as a nation.

And yet, not once, not twice but on so many occasions, for expediency and short term gains, these reports are usually shredded with ethnic, religious and political blades. Persons be they in government or not need to come to the understanding that there is a world of a difference between being displeased with a report or finding merely because it paints one in a bad light and questioning a report or finding because it is inherently flawed. 

The question that is worth posing is whether or not the ruling government would not have latched on to the Afro-barometer report if it was the party in opposition? There is little doubt that it would have.

We have been witnesses to the continual bastardisation and politicisation of research outcomes be they in the form of economic indicators gauging inflation, demographic indicators or other essential indicators in the financial sector. 

State institutions like the statistical service and the bank of Ghana have not been spared from this unfortunate campaign. 

But here is the point: if we keep on going this path, we may not be able to achieve the aims and goals that we have set out for ourselves as  a nation. 

Every research may have some flaws; but it does not take away the fact that there are some useful lessons to be gleaned from it. 

And the only thing that can be said about the bastardisation of economic indicators from state institutions is that these institutions are there for the inheriting. 

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