Focus on good governance, not political parties — Development expert

Ghana’s development agenda will not progress as expected irrespective of the political party in government unless there is a conscious effort to change the minds and attitude of the citizenry towards good governance, a development expert, Mr Ernest Boateng, has said.

He explained that for Ghana to attain its development goals, the mindset and attitude of the people “must always be on good governance and not partisan political parties they voted for or in power”.

“Unfortunately in our parts of the continent, people seem not to understand good governance. They will make sure that once their party is not in government, any great agenda or goal set by the ruling government is sabotaged,” Mr Boateng said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

He said irrespective of the political party in governance, the people owed the nation the duty to support and contribute their quota to national development and not interfere with a goal because their party did not bring it on board.

“Whether the NPP or the NDC, all Ghanaians must throw their weight behind good governance principles to move the nation forward,” Mr Boateng, who is also founder of a non-governmental organisation, Change Attitude Ghana (CAG), said.

Indiscipline and the law

According to him, one of the major challenges slowing the pace of Ghana’s quest to attain accelerated development growth “is the growing acts of indiscipline among the people”.

“Take a look at the environment, everywhere is dirty. People are doing anything they want and law enforcers are looking on unconcerned.”

He said, “Ghana is witnessing increasing acts of indiscipline among people and the sad thing is that nobody is made to face the consequences”.

Political vigilantism

On political vigilantism, Mr Boateng said the reason why the issue persisted that long was because the previous worrying acts of political vigilantisms  were never addressed.

“We saw groups affiliated to political parties taking the laws into their own hands with the security agencies turning a blind eye to it. It happened in the days of the NDC and it is happening in the era of the NPP,” he said.

Mr Boateng said if people were made to face the full rigours of the law after acting violently or dishonouring a law, nobody would even attempt to follow suit .