Covid-19 Response Opinion Poll By Alliance For Continuous Democratic Governance(acdg)

Executive Summary

The survey was conducted between Monday, 23rd March, 2020 to Saturday, 28th March, 2020 via google form and circulated across WhatsApp platforms within Greater Accra, Eastern, Savanah, Western, Ashanti and Central regions.

Political Party efforts in various ways at supporting the fight against COVID-19 is very important because it shows how the parties are concerned about the health of the people they desire to govern. NDC and NPP seem to be known to the public especially in the regions covered to be the ones doing something about COVID-19.

There is more than 85% degree of agreement among respondents that NDC is the most proactive, willing to support government and demonstrated leadership in the interest of the people in the fight against COVID-19. The public is getting to know various activities being undertaken by the party.

There is the need for the NDC to scale up education on the pandemic to come to the level of the provision of PPEs. The party should also enhance public discussion on the strategies outline to demand support for the vulnerable groups, data cost, utility tariff rebate and protection of civilians and business to receive attention from government.

Background

This opinion poll become necessary as the call for support to fight the novel Coronavirus surges across the nation. In response to the call for support, many organisations including churches and political parties in the country have come out to support both in kind and cash. The poll (COVID-19 Poll) assesses the opinion of the public on the activities of political parties in the fight against the novel COVID-19 so far. The focus is on political parties because Ghana is a democratic state with a multi-party system and arguably, political parties are said to be very active when a matter or issue becomes public.

This poll was conducted by the Alliance for Continuous Democratic Governance (ACDG), a pressure group dedicated to projecting the voice of the unheard. The survey was conducted between Monday, 23rd March, 2020 to Saturday, 28th March, 2020 via google form

and circulated across WhatsApp platforms within Greater Accra, Eastern, Savanah, Western, Ashanti and Central regions. The survey recorded a total participation of 3,493 with a valid response of 3,475, representing 99.48%. It is imperative to note that a similar study is underway to assess the role of the religious groups as well and would be published soon.

Results

The following sections present the results from the survey. It is organized based on the questions as presented in the data collection instrument.

The Need for Political Parties Participation in the Fight Against the Novel COVID-19

The survey first of all seek the views of the public on the need for political parties to participate in the fight against the novel pandemic. From the result, an overwhelming proportion of the participants indicated that it is very necessary for political parties to participate in the fight against the novel disease in the country. This result is presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Need for Political Parties` Participation in the Fight Against COVID-19

Identification of Political Parties in Ghana

This section examined the familiarity of the citizens with the political parties available in Ghana. Participants were asked to list the political parties in Ghana. The result is presented in Table 2 and Figure 1. The result indicated that the respondents are familiar with seven (7) political parties in Ghana, while NDC and NPP turned out to be the most known among the citizens. The analysis used a multiple response approach in which case percentage used frequency as a percentage of total respondents (3475) while response percentage used frequency as a percentage of the total responses obtained (sum of all responses or total frequency, that is 7674). This is summarised in Table 2. However, Figure 1 present a graphical result using the response percentage.

Table 2: Identification of Political Parties in Ghana

Figure 1: Identification of Political Parties in Ghana

It is clear that the responses are associated with the political parties` visibility on the COVID- 19 in terms of political parties’ participation in public discussions and donations.

Active Participation in the Management of the COVID-19 in Ghana

Citizens were asked to indicate the political party taking active role in responding or managing the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana. The result indicated that the opposition National Democratic Congress is actively taking steps to manage the pandemic in the country. About 48% of respondents believed the NDC is most active with NPP following with 28%.

This is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Active Participation in COVID-19 Management

Activities of the Party that is Most Actively Involved in the COVID-19 Fight in Ghana

The respondents were asked to indicate or rank some of the activities or actions taken by the political party that most actively involved in the management or the fight against the novel COVID-19. This section is a follow up or extension of the previous section or question. Table 3 contains the activities as listed by the citizens. The F-test for the degree of agreement or Concordance (W) between the rankings of the measures or activities undertaken by the National Democratic Congress with regards to COVID-19 fight in Ghana is 85.79% which is high.

Table 3: Measures taken by NDC in the Fight against COVID-19

Implications

The ranks mean the respondents agree that the formation of the COVID-19 response team is the most visible and observable followed by supply of PPEs. Though, public education ranked 5th, more efforts should be put in place to scale up education. The call for support for the vulnerable that is rank 7th to 10th requires more discussion and comments from the party to make the desire impact.

Overall Assessment of the Performance of the Most Active Political Party in the COVID- 19 Fight.

This section requested the participant to describe the overall performance of the political party that is most active in the fight against COVID-19 in Ghana. From the result, almost all of the participant described the National Democratic Congress as action oriented, proactive and willing to work with the government for the people of Ghana and leadership for the people, though in opposition. The result is presented in Table 4.

Table 4: Description of Overall Performance of the Most Active Party

Conclusion

So far, the contributions of the National Democratic Congress are positive, matured, and above all shows that they have the country at heart. It is also significant to point out that the contribution of the party is in no doubt based on the leadership and management at op level driven by the shining qualities of the flagbearer of the party.

It is also worth mentioning that indeed the good people of Ghana are monitoring every activity in this trying time. We therefore implore all and sundry to make his or her efforts count. The nation needs us all.

LEAD RESEARCHER: MERCY AFUMWAA M. BOATENG Mobile: 0209402820

WhatsApp: 0209402820 Email: [email protected]