Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Ghana have urged the government to resource the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to enable it effectively educate the Ghanaian public on the Covid-19 pandemic.

This move was made after NCCE said that due to inadequate funds, it allotted only GHS100 to its districts offices to help educate the citizenry on Covid-19. However, the CSOs in their joint statement undertook an independent check to ascertain the financial and logistical state of the NCCE and discovered the commission is under-resourced, despite its critical role in public education.

The CSOs discovered that as of April this year, the commission had not received any amount from its 2020 budgetary allocation. The commission has hardly received its total budgetary allocation since 2009. They also discovered that the commission lacks basic tools and equipment such as public address systems for effective advocacy and public education and they rely on rickety cars that hardly enable mobility. The newest cars are eight years old. In fact, even the chairman of the commission does not have an official car since her appointment in 2015, amongst other discoveries.

However, the CSOs have asked the government to retool the NCCE with the necessary funds and logistics to enable it play the critical role of national public education on Covid-19.

The CSOs that signed the statement include Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), SEND-Ghana, West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), IMANI, Citizens Movement against Corruption (CMaC), Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Africa Centre for International Law and Accountability (ACILA), International Child Development Programme (ICDP), Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), CDD-Ghana, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Ghana CSOs Platform on SDGs, Pamoja Ghana (PG), amongst others.

Source: Ghana Web

Photo source: Bagaball