What Technology Can Help Ghanaians Keep Government Accountable????

Congratulations! Ghana was just deemed to be the 2nd most lawful country in Africa (behind Botswana) by the World Justice Project. While this is a laudable achievement, just how much technology was involved? Did we need Ghana Open Data? Or can Ghanaians enjoy good governance without technology solutions getting in the way?

  1. How has technology played a role in connecting Ghanians to their government?
   2.Which technologies were effective (or not) in holding government accountable?
   3.What new technologies can we use to make sure Ghana continues to be transparent?
   4.Who are the innovators developing new solutions to encourage greater citizen engagement?

     this are four major questions most ghanaians are wondering about...

the only technology capable of doing dat, will b the technology that can help change the attitude, mind set, n goals of the ordinary Ghanaian... and for the moment there is no technology lik dat

There are technologies out there that the government is using like sage account, other data entry software's and so forth but non of them is effective enough to make them accountable..... The big factor is the Ghanaman that will be entering data in to the software.. attitude, mindset of the Ghanaman like @swiftblack said.

There should be a tech company under the Government that develops and provides direction in the use of Internet-based technologies to make it easier for citizens and businesses to interact with the Ghanian Government, save taxpayer monies, and streamline citizen participation when it comes to governance.

The Ghana Administration(POLITICAL PARTIES) should be committed to a broad-based set of activities to better integrate evidence and rigorous evaluation in budget, management, operational, and policy decisions, including:

(1) making better use of already-collected data within government agencies
(2) promoting the use of high-quality, low-cost evaluations and rapid, iterative experimentation
(3) adopting more evidence-based structures for grant programs
(4) building agency evaluation capacity and developing tools to better communicate what works for the nation all in the eyes of the public.

This will give the public an unedited view of the Government in Power, that way they will become accountable.

"Who are the innovators developing new solutions to encourage greater citizen engagement?"  ..Well there are various tech companies popping up in Ghana, can really pin point one that is capable of developing new solutions for our Government that involve some of the points i made above...

One thing we should also really consider is sometimes its not technology issue, typical example is 3 million dollars for player appearance fee in Brazil World Cup, if the team had progress to the finals, we would have spent over 6 million dollars on the world cup just for the playing body and management team alone. Now addition millions of dollar was use for the preparation....

Technology will be sh*t if the people at the realms of affair do not spend well and change their mindset.... Even when they are caught, they are not dealt with(punish) like the famous case of Afriyie Ankra... who is still a minister of state today as we speak despite the outrage of Ghanians. this only encourages thievery in Governance.

Technology is good but it all comes back to the mindset of the people. Governments elsewhere do not have as many religious people as ours but are still able to make the structures work. Simply because they are honest. Most Ghanaians are not honest. No matter what technology is in place, people would always have a way around it. What we need most now is a change of mindset.

I also believe that what we need to change is the mindset of our people. we now live in era of governance where people target a certain amount of money even before they get power. Technology although effective always has ways of breaching it. No matter the type of technology we use, people will find ways around it if they are bent on doing it. My greatest fear though is, If Religion couldn't change us what can?

@Dagobert  ..... If am not being too bold about 95% of Ghanians worship as Christian, Islam or Traditionalist.... we all know that we are accountable to a superior if we offend our God. Are these not the same Ministers attending churches of Ducan willian, Mensah Otabel, Bishop Obinnin and of cus Ebenezer.  Trust me our leader are Religious but their Religion is simply called GREED

We know how all these men of God living lavishly in Ghana, some owning university, schools, radio and television stations, cars, mansions. they accept any money giving to them with no question or whatsoever and they themselves are not accountable to anyone because they don't pay taxes on the monies they collect. Some of them are bent on stealing our monies to sponsor their own selfish belly..

Too bad TECHNOLOGY cant keep them accountable and Religion is only an excuse for them to get into power then steal our monies

Technology is a good thing but too much of every good thing is bad. These technologies that you are calling for could and would eventually be turned on us. Take the US for instance, they're the head honchos when it comes to technology, no country has as much technology as they do. They spy on ordinary Americans by tapping their phones, intercepting their emails, watching their every move on CCTV s, these are just but a few. This has sparked endless debates on their necessity. After 9/11, you couldn't say bomb on the phone or in an airport you'd be blacklisted. These technologies could also be used to spy on our leaders and influence them cos knowing Ghanaians, we will outsource it to foreigners as it is the general perception that everything Ghanaian is inferior and who knows what ulterior motives they might have.
Technology is a good thing but I'm just saying lets be careful