These five reports have recently put government on the back foot

Governments across the world know the importance of periodic reports released by credible agencies be it in the area of the economy, human rights, governance or corruption.

When such a report is positive, governments often take the credit and promise to do all it takes to consolidate their spot but when things go south, governments often ‘fight’ such reports with everything at their disposal.

The government of Ghana has had to deal with five of such reports in the last five months. The reports span the economic, human rights, corruption and press freedom scopes.

GhanaWeb looks at what these reports said of Ghana and in some instances the reaction of government

Reporters Without Borders’ 2022 Press Freedom Index

Ghana dropped by thirty places on the World Press Freedom Index in a report put together by Reporters Without Borders.

The 2022 report saw Ghana place 60th after placing 30 in 2021. The ranking was the lowest in nearly two decades in the country’s history.

Out of the 180 countries assessed, Ghana recorded a decline in its indicative points from 78.67 percent to 67.43 compared to last year.

The report pointed to the arrest of some journalists and the unresolved murder of Ahmed Suale as a case study for their assessment of press freedom in Ghana.

In its reaction, government questioned the methodology used and also deflected the cause of the low ranking to actions by independent state agencies like the Police.

US Department of State Human Rights Report

The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is an annual report released by the United States Department of State.

This year’s report on Ghana highlighted issues including; denial of fair public trial, corruption and lack of transparency in government, arbitrary deprivation of life and other unlawful or politically motivated killings.

The others concerns raised bothered on freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media and elections and political participation.

Ghana drops on Corruption Perception ranking

According to the 2021 edition of the annual corruption ranking chart by Transparency International, Ghana ranked 73rd out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perception Index, CPI, report released on April 4.

“Ghana’s current performance is still below 50 which is the expected average, thus leaves much to be desired,” the report noted.

Out of 49 African countries ranked, Ghana placed 9th with Senegal, each bagging a score of 43.

Credit rating agencies downgrade Ghana

Moody’s Investors Service (“Moody’s”) on Saturday, February 5, downgraded the Government of Ghana’s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to Caa1 from B3 and changed the outlook to stable from negative.

The downgrade to Caa1 reflected the increasingly difficult task the government faces addressing its intertwined liquidity and debt challenges.

Weak revenue generation constrains the government’s budget flexibility and tight funding conditions on international markets have forced the government to rely on costly debt with shorter maturity.

Earlier, another international rating agency, Fitch, also downgraded Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B-‘ from ‘B’. The Outlook it said was Negative.