The Citizen Watch describes Imani actions as irrational

The Citizen Watch has taken a sharp swipe at Imani Africa describing its recent comments on President Akufo-Addo’s government as irrational and promotion of mischief as well as distortion of facts.

Imani Africa recently scored the Akufo Addo’s administration 48 percent on the execution of its manifesto. According to Imani Africa, the impact of what the President has achieved is not been felt by the larger population.

But the Citizen watch believes this is not accurate…explaining that impact is about acceptance adding that Imani Africa should rather question Ghanaians about the impact of Addo’s achievement rather than the President. “Impact can only be measured by acceptance and readiness to identify that this is what you need. The Citizen Watch thinks that there is the need to reorient the people and also fashion out what we need as citizens” it said a statement signed by Francis Mensah, Convener of the group.

“For example, one of the flagship programme for this government is the Planting for Food and Jobs, which has successfully been implemented but what is the consumption uptake. It is the duty of the citizen to take up the consumption which is not the responsibility of the government.

Also, the overpass at Madina which was constructed after series of demonstrations. The citizens are still crossing the main road without making the use of the footbridge, is it the duty of the president to ensure the usage of that footbridge.
This brings to conclusion that Imani Africa was acting out of pettiness and frustration. We want to sound a word of caution to Imani Africa that their mischief agenda is dead on arrival”, it said.

“Wrong information travels faster than good news hence we need to set the record straight. We need to recognize that the president does not have the total solution to salvage this country; it is a collective responsibility of the people. We at the Citizen Watch are very grateful for the president’s ability to deliver most of his promises and we should begin to count our blessing one after the other”, the statement said.

The Citizen Watch, however, cautioned Imani Africa to stop the mischief saying they are people who should educate Ghanaians on the achievement of the government.

According to Imani Africa, the government has achieved an overall performance on executing its manifesto commitment of 48.78 percent. This is a satisfactory progress, according to the IMANI MANIFESTO ASSESSMENT (IMMA) Framework, although it sits in the lower bounds of this interpretation. Disaggregating this performance, the NPP government scores, 54.35 percent in the delivery of its commitments on the economy, 46.21 percent on governance, and 46.44 percent on infrastructure.

The government scores 39.13 percent and 43.78 percent on human capital development and social services respectively. Clearly, the aggressive strategy of the government in driving the agriculture industry is seen in its commitment to ensuring that it pushes through most of its promises to “resuscitate” the sector, with positive results registered in some value chains.

It is also a progressive sign to see that, performances in the economy, education and infrastructure, are all pushing the median mark of execution. Health and information technology require significant attention. With the final budget of the government having been presented, a window of opportunity exists for further considerations to ensure these themes also see some marked improvements.

However, addressing the press on Friday, President Akufo-Addo disagreed with the outcome of IMANI’s survey saying that his administration has rather achieved 72 percent of its promises.