The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has engaged stakeholders on the implementation of its maiden report on the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Program (IPEP).
The IPEP Program is one of the flagship programs that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government put together which will enable it allocate US $1 million for each of the 275 constituencies annually.
Speaking in an interview at the sidelines of the Stakeholders workshop on the IPEP Tracker Project Report, Prof. Kwesi H. Prempah, Executive Director of CDD indicated that IPEP was introduced to enhance capital infrastructure by expanding capital structures at the district, constituency levels and help accelerate growth by creating jobs and reducing poverty in the rural and deprived communities.
Prof. Kwesi H. Prempah said CDD-Ghana as result, rolled out preliminary monitoring and evaluation of IPEP across the ten regions of the country to track performance of institutions in charge of the IPEP initiative.
He averred that CDD-Ghana is dedicated to the promotion of society and government based on the rule of law hence its activities are aimed at using research to generate evidence on a wide range of good governance and democracy and development themes.
Giving details of its findings in the report, Mr. Awal Mohammed, Research Officer and Team Leader for IPEP explained that IPEP does not depart too far from several other development initiatives that governments have put in place over the years.
He said management record of those initiatives have been extremely poor, owing to the very nature of their stakeholder consultation processes, planning, design, and implementation.
Mr. Awal Mohammed pointed out that “To protect IPEP from a false start, ensure transparency and accountability of its implementation, strengthen the framework and performance of institutions set up to govern the program, as well as ensure an efficient and good corporate management of public funds allocated to IPEP, CDD-Ghana is implementing the project “IPEP Tracker” to monitor implementation,” adding that the report forms part of the first phase of the CDD-Ghana IPEP Tracker project and focuses on the assessment and monitoring of the preliminary processes for the implementation of IPEP at the national, regional and district/constituency levels.
Key Findings
The findings of the monitoring exercise are categorized under three (3) broad headings: 1) level of stakeholder awareness/knowledge about the IPEP policy and intervention; 2) Observation of the composition and activities of the 10-member Regional Ad-hoc Committees; and 3) Validation and reporting of District/Constituency Infrastructural Needs Assessment.
The team looked at the level of stakeholder awareness/knowledge about the IPEP policy and intervention where it was established that the level of awareness/knowledge about the basic idea of what the IPEP intervention is among stakeholders is somewhat very high.
“However, some key informants, particularly bureaucrats at the regional and district levels had very little or no knowledge about the various projects under IPEP, it is fit into the regional/district medium term development plans, and implementation processes. Generally, NPP party executives and political appointees at the regional and district levels appear to have deeper knowledge of the IPEP program than any other group of stakeholders.”
Also, activities of the 10-member Regional Ad-hoc Committees in general show that majority of informants heard about the inauguration of the regional ad-hoc committees but, many were either unaware or had very little knowledge and/or involvement in the activities undertaken by the committees, whilst there were very limited knowledge among key informants about the criteria the Committees used for selecting and prioritizing infrastructure needs.
In the light of the findings, CDD-Ghana made some recommendations that would help improve the politics, governance and institutional management of the IPEP policy intervention.
Awal Mohammed said the lack of a coordinated policy framework spelling out the IPEP policy intervention and the restriction of information to only a selected few political actors has the potential to create an institutionalized information asymmetry for the principal actors required to successfully implement the program.
He mentioned that the development has the potential to distort the necessary enabling power relations as well as the prevailing transparency and accountability structures.
CDD-Ghana also maintained that the prospect for partisan political capture of the IPEP program particularly at the regional and district or constituency level by political party actors and their bureaucratic supporters is high, and must be looked at since there is a strong believe that these flagship projects like IPEP is a manifesto promise which must be guarded by the party to ensure its success. “It flows from this orientation a belief that bureaucrats are not directly invested in the party’s objectives and therefore cannot be trusted to deliver success. The second source is that party faithful see IPEP as a reward for their hard work and therefore controlling the process will be to ensure material dividends,” he said.
CDD calls for an urgent need to ensure that, the DAs are not used as a political party vehicle to dispense patronage to individual party financiers, communities and organizations, that there is need to define clearly the role of the DAs. Clarifying the role of the DAs is useful for inter-institutional settlement (at the regional and district levels with actors or institutions who have similar responsibilities in the provision and management of public infrastructure at the local level.
It also recommended the creation of institutional relationship by strengthening linkages and partnership between the Development Authorities and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs) and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs). This relationship has to be properly defined and institutionalized within appropriate legal instruments.
“As part of efforts to increase transparency and accountability, there should be strict adherence to the Public Financial Management Act. This will ensure that the allocation, disbursement and usage of the funds will be done effectively and efficiently.”
It also called for the establishment of a stronger accountability device that ensures citizens oversight in the implementation of all the development interventions under the IPEP policy at the regional and district, constituency levels.
BY: PROSPER AGBENYEGA