The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is to intensify the campaign on accountability, rule of law and anti-corruption (arap) this year to drum home the need to curb corruption in the country.

The campaign is to complement  the national anti-corruption (nacap) crusade being undertaken by the commission.

The Chairperson of the Commission, Ms Josephine Nkrumah, stated this during a press briefing on activities lined by the commission for 2018 last Friday.

Ms Nkrumah said environmental governance, under the arap programme, would also feature in its activites.

She stated that it was time for other independent commissions established under the 1992 constitution to review their roles in order to shape stronger institutions relevant to national dvevelopment.

She added that civic education was a shared respnosibility, therefore, the commission had extended a hand of partneship to the media, civil society organisations and all well-meaning Ghanaians to continue to support its programmes.

This year’s activities are on the theme: “Our nation, our heritage; consolidating Ghana’s democratic gains’’. 

Ms Nkrumah said Ghana had seen exchange of power between two political parties four times, which is significant achievenment  in her democratic journey, and, therefore, could not afford to backpedal because the cost would be too high on the country’s democratic history and journey so far, and therefore, the need to focus on civic education to sustain the democratic gains.

‘’Therefore, we must seek to consolidate the gains we have made as a democratic nation,” she said and added that” this achievement has largely been realised by the roles that key constitutional bodies  such as the NCCE have played in protecting and safeguarding the principles of democracy’’.

She said the NCCE would continue to roll out all its flagship programmes in addition to both the EU sponsored ones and other institutional collaborations and commended the European Union and other stakeholders that had supported the commission in the discharge of its constitutional mandate.

For his part, a Deputy Chairman of the Commission in charge of Operations, Mr Samuel Asare Akuamoah,  said the commission organised 68,223 activities across the country in 2017, reaching over 5,234,792 Ghanaians directly while millions were also reached through other media engagements.

Mr Akuamoah said four major social media campaigns, apart from its other civic and public education programmes, covered anti-mob action campaign, anti-galamsey campaign, tax compliance and anti-corruption, rule of law and public accountability (arap) programme.

He stated that the NCCE will continue with its unfinished agenda and endeavour to effectively prosecute its business of reaching out to more Ghanaians as it envisages in 2018.

He expressed the hope that the media and all stakeholders would continue to support the commission to discharge its constitutional mandate this year as the country marks 25 years of uniterrupted constitutional rule.

A deputy Chairperson in-charge of Administration and Finance, Ms Kathy Addy, urged all to support the commission since civic education was a collective responsibility.