In the run up to the elections in Nigeria last year, there was a cartoon which trended on social media in which the then incumbent president, His Excellency Goodluck Jonathan was saying that since students who fail in their exams are made to repeat their class, Nigerians who thought he had failed as their leader should repeat him. In other words, they should give him a second chance to improve his performance. Unfortunately, for him though, he was not repeated, but was showed the exit.

That Ghanaians have come a long way in our governance system is obvious. We came from a culture of silence and a culture of non-transparency and now walking the road where civil society and other stakeholders in our governance system like IMANI Ghana are assessing and scoring a government in power in an election year. Give it up to mother Ghana!

IMANI’s assessment looked at the following areas:

Energy for growth-60.64%

Fulfilling its promise to complete a gas infrastructure plan-100%

Keeping its pledge to enact the local content and participating law-100%

Housing-40%

On the Economy, Imani scored NDC 43.9%

Governance infrastructure-90%

Territorial Integrity-85%

Public service delivery-75%

Fighting corruption-33.8%

Narco-terrorism-15.7%

Rule of Law and Justice-8.3%.

From the assessment the Government’s strength are in:

Energy for growth, fulfilling its promise to complete a gas infrastructure plan, keeping its pledge to enact the local content and participating law, governance infrastructure, territorial integrity and public service delivery.

However, it failed abysmally in the following areas:

The economy, fighting corruption, narco-terrorism and rule of law and justice

Interestingly, as can be expected, the governing NDC has challenged the assessment by IMANI and scored itself 80%
for its performance for the last four years instead of IMANI’s 52.9%. How I wish my bosses would allow me to do my own scoring against my KPIs!

In fact, I have been wondering what method IMANI used in doing the assessment. Measuring our economic growth is something very open and various agencies like the Bank of Ghana, Statistical Service, ISSER ,the World Bank etc have some data to make it easier to get the assessment on point but we need to be sure of how the measurement for Rule of Law and Justice, Fighting corruption, Territorial integrity etc were also done.

But as a voter, what do you make of a 53% achievement of the Government’s promises, based on which it got our mandate to take charge of our lives in this land of ours? IMANI described the scoring of the ruling NDC as fair but urged the electorate to make their own decisions based on their priority areas and expectations.

That is where I personally have a little problem because, in a political season like this, voters need clear understanding of the issues to make informed choices. But when the issues are left hazy, the politicians will use the same information by twisting them in the ‘half full, half empty’ manner to their advantage.

So let me ask you; is NDC’s glass half full or half empty?

By Kojo Ackaah-Kwarteng

Head of Station,Onua FM