By Daniel Bampoe
In the recent political history, civil society organizations and outspoken analysts have often been described as the country’s watchdogs—those who bark loudly when power threatens to overreach, mismanage, or abuse public trust.
Between 2020 and 2024, voices like Franklin Cudjoe, Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, Steve Manteaw, and Senyo Hosi became fixtures in the national discourse.
They dissected government deals, exposed alleged fiscal mismanagement, and scrutinized constitutional deviations with a sharpness that sometimes rattled the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
To the average Ghanaian, these voices were a hallmark of democracy in action—civil society holding power accountable.
To the NPP, their scrutiny often felt partisan, relentless, and at times, unfair. Every alleged misstep became fodder for analysis; every policy decision, a battleground for public debate.
When the 2024 elections saw the NPP lose decisively, many within the party attributed the defeat not only to economic and governance failures but to the unyielding pressure exerted by these once-neutral public commentators.
Their influence had been profound, leaving lessons for both the outgoing and incoming governments.
Fast forward to today, under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, the landscape has shifted—but the voices remain.
What has changed is not their platform, or their public visibility, but their alignment, tone, and targets.
Take the recent $214 million shortfall in the Gold-for-Reserves program reported by Sammy Gyamfi’s Gold Board.
In the past, such a revelation would have triggered sustained public critique and calls for accountability. This time, Senyo Hosi described the deficit not as a loss but as an “economic cost”—effectively reframing a question of fiscal accountability into a matter of acceptable economic interpretation.
The watchdog’s bark had been replaced by a soothing, justificatory narrative.
Similarly, when the International Monetary Fund raised concerns about the same shortfall, analyst Steve Manteaw dismissed the issue as envy from the global institution rather than a genuine financial concern.
By reframing accountability as interpersonal and political sentiment, he transformed a $214 million financial gap into what resembled celebrity drama, redirecting public attention away from governance failures to speculative motives.
Even Franklin Cudjoe, who once positioned himself as a defender of the ordinary Ghanaian against unfair taxation and government overreach, has appeared to shift his approach.
Faced with a 16% increase in water tariffs, he reportedly advised citizens to resort to streams and ponds if prices were too high—a response widely interpreted as dismissive, even mocking, toward those most affected by rising costs.
The advocate had become the mouthpiece of power, no longer the shield for the powerless.
The transformation reaches a symbolic peak with Prof. H. Kwasi Prempeh, who now chairs the government’s Constitutional Review Committee.
Once a vocal critic of executive overreach, Prempeh’s new role places him at the center of a process that could alter the very checks and balances he spent years defending.
Analysts and observers suggest this is less about participation in good governance and more about co-option—civil society and intellectual voices integrated into state machinery in ways that may compromise independence.
What emerges is a pattern: the opposition’s former critics are now absorbed into the operations of government, turning confrontation into collaboration, scrutiny into explanation, and accountability into justification.
This is not corruption in the traditional financial sense but a corruption of purpose—voices once trusted to protect public interest have shifted to safeguarding the state’s narrative.
Under the NPP, civil society could be relentless, merciless, and at times uncomfortable for government.
Under the NDC, these same institutions and figures now appear to mediate public anger, smooth over controversies, and reframe criticism in ways that favor incumbency.
The citizen, observers argue, is left without an independent advocate; the democracy that once relied on vigorous debate now risks operating without its essential immune system.
In essence, Ghana’s watchdogs have not merely changed shifts—they have changed allegiances.
The public faces rising costs, policy failures, and fiscal anomalies without the same level of independent scrutiny that characterized the past.
Civil society’s independence, once a cornerstone of democratic resilience, appears compromised.
