Five institutions honoured for exemplary performance
A Former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, has called for an autonomous body to deal with corruption in the country.
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He said as a matter of urgency, an anti-corruption independent body with prosecution powers should be instituted to clamp down on what he called the corruption menace.
Prof. Adei made the call when he delivered the keynote address at the fifth edition of the IMANI Public Sector Leadership Awards at the Alisa Hotel in Accra last Wednesday.
Awardees
Five institutions which distinguished themselves in the areas of transformation through innovation, public engagement, and independence of control from the central government were honoured at the event.
They are the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Gender.
The awards ceremony was held on the theme: “Smart Governance: Key Principles for a better Public Sector.” It was predicated on three pillars: Public engagement, independence and the promise of transformation.
IMANI’s awards, instituted five years ago, is an advocacy tool to support ongoing reforms in the public sector and boost the stature of those pursuing the reforms.
The initiative is also meant to assess the performance of public institutions and reward them for the successful and effective delivery of their mandates.
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Efficient public sector
Prof. Adei said an efficient, transparent and effective performing public sector was required to propel the growth of the economy. He added that the sector was rather bleeding with corruption and bureaucracies, which makes it complicated to access services delivered by it.
He, therefore, stated that the leadership in governance needed to take immediate steps to rectify the situation to make the sector the engine of economic growth in the country.
He suggested the need for the government to embrace electronic–governance (e-governance) and innovative mechanisms through the use of ICT to facilitate better planning and delivery of public services.
Politics/policy
The President of IMANI, Mr Franklin Cudjoe, in his address, noted that although it was the government’s desire to transform the economy, the disproportionate balance between politics and policy, with the former dominant at all levels of government, slowed the vision.
To ensure a total transformation, he reiterated the need for a robust and efficient public sector.
While commending the government for the steady progress in some of the reform areas under the public sector reform strategy, he stressed that there were still areas that were heavy on politics than policy.
Mr Cudjoe stated, for example, that the financial management and energy sector reforms seemed to be making the efforts, but the politics involved was too much, and that was stalling the reform agenda.
Chief of Staff
The Chief of Staff, Mr Julius Debrah, said there was a growing perception about an inefficient and corrupt public sector, which is not good for the country.
The perceptions, he said, needed to change to drive a more efficient and effective public sector.