Ghana Implementation Report 2017-2019

Funding shortfalls and stalled legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r... continue to limit commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... implementation in Ghana. However, passage of the long-awaited Right to InformationThe legal right to request information from the government allows the public to follow government decision-making, participate in ensuring better decisions, and hold the government accountable. Techni... Act and establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor marked important progress in establishing the legal and administrative infrastructure needed to further open government. Moving forward, government and civil society should capitalize on these achievements by ensuring full implementation of the RTI Act and an independent and well-resourced Special Prosecutor.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Ghana joined OGP in 2011. Since, Ghana has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the implementation of Ghana’s third action plan.

General overview of action plan

The overall level of implementation was moderate. Notably, implementation of Commitment 4 (beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... More transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More) was completed. Yet the IRM assessed the open government impact as “marginal” as it did not create public beneficial ownership information during the implementation period.

Commitments 4 and 6 were substantially completed. The passage of an almost 20-year-old Right to Information Bill was a significant milestone. However, civil society is concerned with the one-year moratorium on its implementation (ending January 2020) to allow the government to prepare an implementation roadmap.

Government and civil society worked together throughout implementation. However, Steering CommitteeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... meetings were infrequent and limited to the capital. Moving forward, the Ghanaian OGP Secretariat should prioritize the creation of an OGP repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or .... This public database of OGP activities, meetings, and commitment progress is an essential transparency tool to quickly educate government and civil society participants who are new to the OGP process.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Five Key IRM Recommendations

The IRM key recommendations are prepared in the IRM design report. They aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan. In Ghana’s 2017–2019 Design Report, the IRM recommended the following: