I got my hands on a recent Afrobarometer report gracefully put together by Ghanaian think-tank Center for Democratic Development (CDD). The report prepared in June, assesses the Ghanaian’s assessment of the current NPP government. A face-to-face survey was carried out in March this year with 1200 respondents and was the forth round of surveys carried out in Ghana by Afrobarometer. This being an election year, which I have posted on earlier here, the reading is quite interesting. Basically, large majorities approve of president Kufuor’s performance and the NPP’s policies, especially related to healthcare and education. The trust ratings for the current president are high (88% answered just a little/somewhat/a lot to if they trust the prez) has significantly increased since 2002 (64%) and 2005 (75%).
Surprisingly with this background, a large majority or 70% of Ghanaians also perceive there is corruption in the presidency (the figure above has from my understanding derived from again adding up the answers just a little/somewhat/a lot). Back in 2005, little over half or 56% of the Ghanians perceived corruption in the presidency suggesting a considerable change in people’s view about what goes on in the castle.
I am glad to come across such a important and interesting report underpinned by current and sufficient data, however I find this results very puzzling. Do these results mean Ghanaians trust politicians they believe to be corrupt?
The report can be found here.
Pic: A painting of some murky, corrupt men? Or is it enraged citizens? Or a politician accompanied by her life guards? I recently fell in love with this artwork in an exhibit, unfortunately without recording the artist.
4 comments:
Kajsa, I see the confusion the report creates. How can your trust in somebody (or some body) increase, while at the same time your perception that they are corrupt also increases? I detect answers given in a survey by people who did not stop to think about the question before answering. This, however, is not to take anything away from the endeavours of the CDD.
Thanks for drawing our attention to this Kajsa. Very interesting.
Hi guys, thanks for the comment. Maybe people did not think about the sum of their answers, but that is in a way even better, because then the answers are true, heartfelt. When sleeping on this, I thought maybe it is a perceived no choice situation? "I dont trust politician A, but what is the alternative?"
hi there,
T.........I..........C!!!
this is Ghana...and like the way Nduom (i'm not campaigning!) would put it, "we're where we are!".
and because we're where we are let no one take the people for a joke! unless we want to mill out only a circus out of our pains, sweat and blood and more instead of helping everyone up the hill!
so where are we? we are at a point where most of the people are illiterates in all the languages spoken in Ghana- most! saying it was done in respondents language of choice is not enough!
so, CDD must tell us more maybe?
i didn't finish reading your piece before deciding to comment that it is an absurdity...that was before i read your alert...I actually felt i was going to tell that 'don't take this seriously' but before i could call Subruku!, you pointed out the very fake picture that came to mind.
It is fake! and let's not call a spade a big spoon! IT IS FAKE!!!
if it's not fake then CDD only wants to tell us that Ghanaians are inconsistent! how can that be! that most Ghanaians are not LOGICAL?
and the percentages are really huge! who and who were they interviewing? CONCERT!!!
Come to think of it? if this was wide spread enough and if political party leaning was in play as is mostly the case...then with Ghana wHere we have almost a 50-50 situation, this is really CONCERT!
Kufuor's rating even in his own party can't be that high! i challenge it with all the ampesi i ate at lunch today!
So maybe CDD did not ask the right questions and for a face to face survey as they call it...surely the level of influence of the conductors must be questioned! CONCERT!
I'm actually commenting a load cos this makes for a good laugh to round off my week. it's been a hectic one for me.
and i understand that you wonder whether people thought about the sum of their answers! but it can't be that they won't think about the sum! at least a lot should have! I mean we don't have only idiots sprinkled all around us as fellow citizens. Ghanaians are very discerning! well most...the rest are idiots like (or less/more than) me!
these can't be true heartfelt answers from people...Ghanaians...somebody is trying to play concert! that's what it is!
definitely if you conduct a survey and you can tell as Nana puts it that the answers did not come from logical reasoning then there must certainly be something wrong!
you don't just rush to publish because you've conducted a survey! Do you? or what do you want to achieve? why won't you just do it again by another method and check and cross-check to be sure a bit more!
for example, if you ask a man for his AGE and he mentions say 2008! (two thousand and eight), would you go ahead and publish that just because you have an answer to a question you posed????
T..........I...........C:
THIS IS CONCERT!
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
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