The Chairperson of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) is amazed that an institution as crucial as hers, is not prioritised in terms of the resources it needs to work.
Discharging the Commission’s duty, according to Kathleen Addy, is a huge sacrifice, having described her outfit as a “very tough terrain.”
Narrating the ordeal workers have to contend in executing their mandate, Madam Addy disclosed that the challenges go beyond the lack of vehicles which is the most evident of their problems to the citizenry.
Speaking on Hot Issues on TV3 Sunday, September 15, 2024, the NCCE Chair stated that the lack of premium on the Commission’s resources looking at how pivotal its mandate is, is still a mystery to them.
“My staff, the staff of NCCE, are among the most hardworking in the public sector because working in NCCE, you need love for the job because it’s a huge sacrifice. It’s a very tough terrain. Our lack of resources does not end at vehicles.
“If you go to some of our offices in the districts, office accommodation is very poor. Some places you may not even find chairs and tables, computers, so it’s a tough terrain to work in,” she stated.
When asked why she thinks such an important institution is not getting the attention it requires, she said: “Well, that is one of the mysteries of this century, isn’t it? Because I find it very strange.”
She says it is strange that the framers of the constitution underscored the need to get people to understand the laws and abide by it but failed to make provision for its resources needed to execute that mandate to be given.
After overthrowing Ghana’s first three Republics, Madam Addy averred that civic education should have been the priority of the constitution.
However, not much attention has been given to the NCCE which is responsible for ensuring that “one of the things” needed to be avoided “at the start of the Fourth Republic is to get to a place where people are happy to throw away the constitution again.”
For this to be achieved, she said there was the need to “let them understand constitutionality, let them understand democracy and all of that. So that’s where we’ve come from. So one would have thought, right, that then they will understand the resource requirements, but somehow it was left out. It was left out of their arrangements.”
