We were pleasantly surprised when the Ghana Gas Company responded to our request to tour the ongoing early phase gas infrastructure project (EPGIP) with immediate enthusiasm. We are not used to that from government agencies, and certainly not from agencies involved in the energy sector. GNPC, for instance, is shadowy and arrogant, and aloof and unresponsive to any sense of public accountability or transparency.

Not so Ghana Gas, as we discovered to our appreciation. Full Document

This is the fifth edition of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy index. It reflects the situation at the end of 2012. In 2012 global democracy was at a standstill in the sense that there was neither significant progress nor regression in democracy in that year. Average regional scores in 2012 were very similar to scores in 2011.

The first edition of the index, published in The Economist’s The World in 2007, measured the state of democracy in September 2006; the second edition covered the situation towards the end of 2008; the third as of November 2010 and the fourth at the end of 2011.

The index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories—this covers almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states (micro states are excluded). The Democracy index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Countries are placed within one of four types of regimes: full democracies; flawed democracies; hybrid regimes; and authoritarian regimes. Full Document

A retired officer of the Ghana Armed Forces, Captain Budu Koomson, believes prevailing conditions in the country make the staging of a coup d’état imminent.

This, according to him, was because “the blatant abuse of state wealth by political operatives can trigger something like this coupled with the political stalemate in the society.”

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