Emeritus Professor Ernest Aryeetey, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, has boldly stated Ghana’s problem is not the constitution but those who are responsible for implementing the constitution.
He noted that Democracy has not delivered what it should for Africa.
In an interview on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, October 20, Professor Aryeetey explained, “Democracy has not delivered what it should for Africa, that is true, but it hasn’t failed Africa. Africa has not used democracy properly. Africa has abused democracy.”
“The problem we have in Ghana is not the constitution. The problem is the people responsible for implementing or enforcing the constitution. The problem is the new political culture that we have created, hiding on the back of democracy”.
“We created a culture in Ghana where, because people are fighting for political authority, anybody and anything that guarantees them assurance of political power, they hold on to it,” he said.
Professor Ernest Aryeetey emphasised that Ghana’s challenges lie in the political culture that has emerged under democracy.
According to Professor Ernest Aryeetey, Judges and Lecturers now fear the government due to the new culture that Ghanaians have allowed to fester.
He highlighted that the public sector has been completely destroyed today, adding that there is hardly a civil servant who can boldly speak up to politicians.
He added, “We created, using the constitution, a presidency that should theoretically be constrained in exercising its power by a judiciary, by a legislature and so on. Over the years, we have watched politicians from both parties destroy the institutions that are supposed to be keeping an eye on what they do.
We have destroyed the Judiciary, we have destroyed the public sector completely today, there is hardly a civil servant who can tell politicians this is the right thing to do, everybody is afraid, we have turned every civil servant into a politician. So we have a parliament which is supposed to be independent of the executive, and yet we have seen over the years…”.
Prof Ernest Aryeetey added, “It is this new culture that, as voters, or as independent stakeholders, has allowed, that is the problem, it is not democracy. Even judges are afraid of what the president’s office will say. I am not talking about the current situation. Judges giving judgment in court are thinking about what the government will say.
Lecturers teaching at the University are thinking of what the government will say about what they said, and they are afraid of students in the class who are politicians and are likely to report them”.
Prof Aryeetey also criticised Ghana’s over-reliance on Bretton Woods institutions for policy direction.
He added. “In a way, when we went to the Washington Group to seek support for what we were doing, we didn’t always go to them with a clear plan of what we wanted. We often went to say something like we want to do something about agriculture, and they would say okay fine, we’ll send you some experts to come and help you.”
“These experts are coming from different countries; they are going to sell to you what they do in their own countries, and this is because we have not invested enough in the capacity of people who could tell the government how to transform our sectors”.
“You don’t let a World Bank consultant come and tell you what you need to do. You should be telling him or her, this is what I want to do — can you help me structure it, not ask him what should I do.”
Watch the video below: