CDD points out flaws in NPP and NDC manifestoes

With voters becoming more critical about political parties’ manifestos in deciding which direction to cast their votes, the Centre Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has taken it a step further to breakdown the issues for easy understanding of voters.

Titled “Performance of Ghana’s economy and capacity for financing key medium-term (2021-2024) flagship policies and programmes,” CDD-Ghana offered critical assessment and analysis of the two major political parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) – which since the inception of the fourth Republic have ruled the country.

The assessment was broadly based on four thematic areas – economy, health, education and social protection.

Professor Emerita Takyiwaa Manuh chaired the launching of the report last week in Accra.

As a prelude to panel discussion on the report, the Political Counsellor at the British High Commission in Ghana, Dr Joseph Whittle, said Ghanaians are very particular about political parties promises, hence take manifestos seriously.

He feared there may be voter apathy, as some voters think political parties only use their manifesto as a means to win power and when they assume leadership fail to honour those promises.

However, to provide more concrete ground for voters to vote on issues presented by the two main political parties, Dr Abeka Nkrumah, Prof Baah Boateng, Prof Gafaru Abdullai and Kofi Asare deliberated on four key sectors namely; health, economy, social protection and education respectively.

Ghana lacks legal framework on Social Protection (SP)    

CDD-Ghana assessing NDC and NPP manifestos on Social Protection (SP) said despite the country having made significant progress, the SP lacks a legal regime safeguarding the sector.

Meanwhile, over the years, Ghana has implemented social intervention programmes such as the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW) programme, Capitation Grant and National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Others include; the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) programme, Free School Uniforms, Free Exercise Books and Free Senior High School Programme.

Regardless of these flagship programmes being touted by these parties as their greatest achievements, the panel said Ghana is one of the countries that has made low investments into social protection.

It explained that in the absence of a legal framework, these programmes are being implemented on institutional basis and feared that they might be confronted with the issue of sustainability and credibility.

Being critical about the manifesto, it said, rising numbers of poverty and inequality in the country suggest that “we are actually not doing something right” and as such it is a major developmental problem.

Pointing to the flaws in the NPP’s Manifesto, it said the governing party was habitually silent on Social Protection, while the NDC manifesto makes mention of establishing a legal framework on social protection by passing the Social Protection Bill and School Feeding Bill.

On social financing, it was discovered that even though the NDC pledges to ensure sustained finance for social protection for the poor, without giving a clear roadmap as to how that would be achieved, the NPP manifesto was totally silent.

CDD-Ghana stated that the two parties were silent on low cash value of existing programmes, although the value of major social assistance programmes remains lower than would be required to effectively enhance the lives of people in extreme poverty.

Hitherto, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) directed that cash transfers should be worth at least 20% of the household’s pre-transfer consumption, the LEAP cash grant falls far below the amount needed for the survival of the poorest, if the grant were the sole source of income or livelihood for such households.

Similarly, the government currently spends about $30per person (GH¢144) to provide care to NHIS members, whereas the World Health Organisation recommends spending $86 per member. This is against the backdrop of delayed payment claims to suppliers and facilities, but also forces quality of health provisioning.

According to the panellists, the GH¢2.50 allocated to help meet the nutritional needs of beneficiary children in our schools is insufficient, adding that the School Feeding programme also encounters governments’ delayed disbursements of funds to local caterers

CDD-Ghana in its report said: “With these observations in mind, it is unfortunate that neither the NDC nor the NPP 2020 manifesto makes any pledge with regards to increasing the cash value of any of the flagship social protection programmes.”

Education- GPS should be used in placing students

On education, the panellists said although data is available that there are about 400,000 school children in Ghana, and a dropout rate of about 20% of enrolled learners in basic school, thereby affecting improved equitable access; the NPP proposed providing uniform student ID to track out-of-school children.

But they said, “the issue is not with the availability of data, rather the lack of action by the government to put in place enhanced school retention polices.”

The NDC on the other hand proposed to support children in underserved communities with the “necessary support and incentives to remain in school” as a means of preventing dropouts and promoting improved equitable access to and participation in inclusive quality education at all levels.

However, no specific intervention is mentioned to help with monitoring and enforcement.

According to them, while the NPP is consolidating gains made on the implementation of the Free SHS, the NDC promised to expand the Free SHS programme to cover students in private Senior High Schools in underserved/deprived areas.

But CDD-Ghana was quite apprehensive with NDC’s promise to ensure the inclusion of private schools participation in the free SHS programme, adding such agenda defeats the essence of current financial challenges it faces in its sustainability.

Although the NPP promised to provide Wi-Fi internet and IT gadgets to schools to enable students’ entry into the virtual world, it failed to prioritise Internet Safety of the children.

Similarly, both manifestoes do not address the lack of nurseries in public schools, regardless of it being a key contributor to over-aged school enrolment and cause of dropouts.

Provision of infrastructure, as espoused by both manifestoes is relevant to improving equitable access, retention and quality, as conducive environment remains key to teaching and learning enhancement.

However, no mention is made of girl-friendly or disability friendly school infrastructure, as about 40% of basic schools have no separate toilets for girls, affecting girls’ retention and drop-outs.

This, therefore, suggests an effort to continue developing education along an exclusive tangent, non-inclusive of girls and persons with disability.

They also critiqued why the government in 2017 concealed the free exercise books for primary schools, only for it to be rebranded as free exercise books, notebooks, textbooks and free uniforms for secondary schools.

Apart from this challenge, there are other structural inefficiencies within the education system, which has to do with feeding of day-students.

They find the programme unsustainable, as it has affected the number of hours day-students have to spend in school.

They noted that the day-students contact hours had been reduced regrettably from about 2,020 to 160 hours, all because of free meal.

Addressing the issue of education financing with regard to boarding schools, the panellists proposed that the computerised placement system should to be looked at by taking into cognisance our residential address system, which is available on the GPS.

Health

With much focus on the NDC, since it made the most promises in this sector, for instance, to engage international allies for additional specialized ICU staff, the panellists described such move as unnecessary.

CDD-Ghana said the NDC’s proposal to amend the law to increase maternity leave to four months may encounter financial challenges, especially from the private sector, adding “the option for the government to take up the cost of the extra months is also not feasible, considering the limited fiscal space the NDC would have should they win the election.”

Seemingly, employing the backlog of health personnel may seem to be a straightforward and easy approach to addressing what seem to be personnel shortages in services delivery institutions.

However, budget can be a challenge. At the moment, compensation is about 60% of the MOH overall budget, up from 51% in 2016. We cannot continue to increase the compensation budget at a time that GOG contribution to the MOH budget is low.

The development of a comprehensive Public Health Emergency Preparedness Policy will constitute a strategic document to address emergency preparedness which is currently non-existent.

Economy

CDD-Ghana tackling the issues of the economy, called on the two political parties to address the issue of discretionary tax waivers/exemptions, which contribute a total of GHC6.2 million loss to revenue.

This is against the backdrop of Low tax-to-GDP ratio: Over the last two decades, the tax ratio in Ghana has remained around 12.8% of GDP, below sub-Saharan African (SSA) average of 15%. High incentives and pressures to tax less and spend more.

The panellists noted, “weak state capacity (personnel, data, technology, administrative systems) to identify, assess, facilitate payment of, and collection of taxes, particularly in the informal and entrepreneurial sector, coupled with a generally weak sense of civic obligation to pay tax.

“The NPP in fine tuning solution to the problem in the manifesto, underpinned by the use of digitization -formalize the economy and improve revenue mobilization, raise funding through long term corporate bonds, mobilise domestic revenues by continuing to broaden the tax base, simplifying the filing of taxes and improve collection regimes

“And to exempt prospecting and reconnaissance by mining firms from VAT and other taxes, to incentivise investment in exploration activities to delineate ore bodies as a means to ensure a pipeline of mining project.

“The NDC on the other is poised to realign the entire fiscal framework to achieve efficient resource mobilization and Utilization of public funds, broaden the tax base while containing tax rates, reduce discretionary tax exemptions, improve tax collection, improve systems and processes including integration and interfacing of customs and integrate domestic tax database with other institutional database.

“Hitherto, both documents recognise low revenue-to-GDP ratio to indicate the existence of fiscal space. However, many of the measures are politically driven and less technically feasible.

Example NDC promises to broaden the tax base and at the same time offer tax reliefs to MSMEs from 2021 into the medium-term.

“Broadening the tax base implies extending tax measures to cover these economic agents, which are often cited as operating outside the tax bracket. Whilst recognising it as post-COVID recovery measures, no rigorous assessment has been made to find out if taxes are the key constraints that could impede post-COVID recovery of MSMEs.

“No serious measures outlined to address tax exemptions, which are often abused by political players and account for huge revenue losses to government.

“The NPP proposes tax exemptions for mining firms for prospecting in addition to the numerous incentives to mining firms including repatriation of profits, which has political been a source of concern in terms of how much Ghana benefits government derives from the exploitation of our mineral resources.

In all, none of the manifestos outlined measures to prevent revenue leakages, particularly at the local economy. Several revenue leakages have been identified in the annual Auditor General’s reports.

These must be closed and the people who have violated the law must be prosecuted. NPPs digitization agenda could be a game-changer if it is directed at tax collection at the local government level to minimise the high degree of human involvement in tax collection.

 

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