The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, was on Thursday adjudged the most inspirational public institution for 2016 in the IMANI Inspirational Public Sector Leadership Awards (IPSLA) held at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel, Accra.
The ministry headed by Nana Oye Lithur scored 67% as against the first runners up, the Electoral Commission, which scored 65%.
The Ministry of Health with 53%, the National health Insurance Authority with, 52% and the National Commission for Civic Education 48%, won the third , fourth and fifth positions respectively.
The policy think tank also ranked National Sports Authority, Ministry of Justice and Attorney General, National Youth Authority, National Commission on Culture and The Sports Ministry as the least Inspirational institutions in the country.
The Policy Analyst and Social Media Manager at Imani Ghana, Brian Dzansi explained that the purpose behind the IPSL, saying its is to support reforms, with an objective of awarding excellence.
"IPSLA is an advocacy tool to support on-going reforms in the public sector and to boost the stature of those pursuing those reforms," he told ghanaguardian.com.
“The objective of the award is to use praise as a more powerful tool to motivate those institutions on the right path as we highlight the positive developments in public institutions."
“We believe strongly that public institutions need strong leadership and direction so that they can focus on rule of law, competent and minimal bureaucracy and the transparent provision of public goods, such as security of life and property, sound regulation and the enforcement of quality standards.”
The 2016 IPSLA assessed 51 public institutions, and according to the results, none of the institutions surveyed had a score in the excellent band of the IPSLA with 4 percent placed in the very good performance band, while 4 percent were in the good performance band.
12 percent hit the fair performance band, with 43 percent in the poor performance band, while 31 percent fell in the very poor performance band of the IPSLA scale.
Announcing some findings, Mr. Dzansi stated that the work showed the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General, the Ministry of Power , the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology all had their websites under maintenance for over 3 months.
“On the other hand, the NCCE, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Gender, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Communication, the Bank of Ghana, the GIPC and the National Identification Authority all had online presence with varying text options,” he said.
Recommendations
Mr Dzansi also made some recommendations to the those public institutions, aimed at improving and prioritizing public participation.
He said making public participation a priority will deepen democracy, ensure trust in institutions promote social accountability and good governance.
“Public institutions must build a two-way interactive system and also have a secured online presence with updated content and documents to inform and engage the public,” he said.
“They must also take advantage of growth in social media penetration in the country to engage public effectively and respond swiftly to their concerns and develop inclusive digital tools which are disability friendly."
PUSHING FOR BETTER PERFOMANCE
The awards, in its sixth year, has had immense impact in bolstering major reforms in the public sector as the overall 2016 IPSLA scores indicating a general improvement in the performance of most institutions assessed.
However no institutions was able to hit the 70% excellent mark and according to IMANI, it hope that in the coming years, the level of efficiency in the public sector will rise higher.
"We just had a change of Government and some are wondering 'what will IMANI do this time around' well, we will continue to do what we v always been doing-ask simple common sense questions about the use ofv National resource and the alternative thereof,"says the vice president if IMANI Ghana, Mr Kofi Bentil.
"We will continue to push for a better performances from our public offices,"he added.
By:Fiifi Abdul Malik @fiifialmaestro on twitter
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