I present the results of a survey that was conducted from February 22, 2010 to March 21, 2010. The purpose of the survey was to collate the views of Ghanaians everywhere on the 4th Republican Constitution. Survey respondents participated voluntarily by accessing a link that was placed on www. Ghanaweb.com and other chat rooms known to and accessible to me (e.g., Okyeame@gogglegroups.com, glu-ghana-leadership-forum@googlegroups, elephant-patriots@googlegroups.com). In addition to accessibility, these sites were chosen because they are patronized by a good cross section of the population who frequently express views and debate on the Constitution. Therefore, survey respondents were not randomly chosen. However, given that the purpose of the survey was to collate views on the Constitution, I wanted respondents who had read the Constitution or were knowledgeable on the workings of the Constitution.
The survey consisted of 53 questions. Questions 1 to 5 asked some background questions about the respondents’ access to and knowledge of the Constitution while questions 51 to 53 asked demographic questions. Question 6 asked participants to rate the effectiveness of 20 Constitutional organs. Questions 7 to 15 asked questions about the executive; questions 16 to 26 asked questions pertaining to the legislature; and questions 27 to 34 addressed the judiciary. In addition, I asked questions about the district assemblies (question 34), death penalty (question 36), political parties (questions 37 to 40), CHRAJ (questions 41 to 45), transitional provisions (questions 46 and 47), chieftaincy (question 48), and general elections (questions 49 and 50). The appendix to this executive summary shows the questions asked, frequency distribution of the responses, and the number of participants who answered and skipped each question.
Demographic Profile of Respondents and Access to Constitution
One thousand two hundred and twenty six (1,226) participants responded to the survey. About 80% of the respondents were between the ages of 31 to 60 and most (95%) of the respondents were males. Approximately 37% of the respondents self-reported that they own a copy of the 1992 Constitution and only about 18.6% had read all chapters of the Constitution. Surprisingly, about 28.5% of the respondents had not read some of the chapters or parts of the 1992 Constitution and 18.1% indicated that they did not understand the contents of the Constitution. Only 7% felt they were extremely knowledgeable about the Constitution. About 25% of those who do not read their personal copies of the Constitution, access the Constitution through online sources such as Ghanaweb while about 17.1% borrow their friends’ copies. These responses suggest that the 4th republican Constitution is not available to, accessible to, read by and understood by many Ghanaians. Government should consider making it part of the curriculum at the secondary and tertiary levels.
Effectiveness of Constitutional Organs
The 4th Republican Constitution created several organs and charged them with specific responsibilities. How well have these organs discharged those responsibilities? To address this question, I asked the respondents to evaluate the effectiveness of 20 Constitutional organs on an 11 point scale where a score of 1 indicates “minimum effectiveness,” a score of 6 indicates “moderate effectiveness” while a score of 11 indicates maximum effectiveness. The mean (standard deviation) effectiveness rating for each of the 20 organs is tabulated in Table 1. Table also reports a raw ranking of the Constitutional organs as well as a statistical ranking. The statistical rankings are based on means that are statistically significant (i.e., I rank an organ as more effective than another only if the mean between the two organs cannot be satisfactory explained by chance. Technically, these are paired t-tests with significance level fixed at .05).
Respondents indicate that the Electoral Commission has been the most effective organ, with a mean effectiveness rating of 7.56. The Ghana Armed Force, Presidency and the Media are tied for second place, even though their mean effectiveness rating is less than 6 (moderate effectiveness). Parliament is considered least effective of the 3 branches of government at a mean score of 4.34. The Political Parties are ranked as third, ahead of CHRAJ and the National Security Council. The least effective organs are the Council of State, District Chief Executives, and the National Development and Planning Commission, who score below 4 on the effectiveness scale.
Overall, other than the Electoral Commission, it is clear that respondents think that these Constitutional organs have not been very effective in discharging their constitutional obligations.
Great job! I hope the government has a department that looks for information like this…if they get this information and will learn from it…Ghana will benefit. I’m not surprise EC made it to the top…five successful elections in a role…both EC and Ghanaians deserve our praise. I’ve always believe that Ghanains are well informed and this study confirms that. We’re on the right path, with a little more change in attitude our beloved country will make big strides.
doesn’t matter what I think of the NPP, I think we have just few good african leaders, so having one stand out as a good leader to the outside world is a credit to the country
people are observing and learning, so you can’t take them for granted. I didn’t read anything about the police. we all know what their viewn on police will be
it’s not surprising that ghanaians rate the electoral commission higherst. I think for ghana to go through 4 presidential elections is a big thing, all credit to the EC
it’s interesting that ghanaians are becoming so informed these days. I think for ordinary people to be able to say which branch of govement is working and which is not, is very encoraging. Good job, prof.