President John Mahama has pledged Government's readiness not to relent in working to ensure that Ghana continues to exhibit true democratic tendencies on the African continent.
He pledged government's support to all institutions especially the Electoral Commission to ensure that it carried out its programmes and reforms successfully.
President Mahama, who was presenting his maiden Sate of the Nation's Address to Parliament on Thursday, expressed Government’s readiness to continuously partner with community-based organisations and civil society organisations, especially in the areas of public service delivery.
He said in pursuance of this objective, the Government would develop mechanisms for promoting citizen-based monitoring and evaluation of public policies and programmes, as well as providing feedback and suggestions on ways of improving the targeting of social and economic development programmes.
He said the works of the National House of Chief, and the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Traditional Affairs, had been re-aligned to provide more vigorous interface between chieftaincy and tradition in an effort to promote accountable governance in the traditional sector.
He said the 'Job 600' project, which would serve as decent offices for Members of Parliament was near completion, adding that it would be furnished with laptops with full Internet connectivity to facilitate communication between their offices and constituents as promised in the NDC manifesto.
He pledged to strengthen Parliament by establishing the Democracy Fund as proposed by the Constitution Review Committee (CRC), as well strengthen the Committees of Parliament by ensuring that the Chairpersons and Ranking Members of Parliament are accorded recognition consistent with their status and responsibilities as recommended by the CRC.
He said Cabinet would henceforth rotate its meetings between Accra and other regional capitals.
"By this, millions of our citizens outside Accra would have the opportunity each month to witness and participate in the process of decision-making directly."
He pledged to implement a recommendation from the CRC, which called for the election of District Chief Executives to ensure proper decentralisation process.
"During my first term as President, every effort would be made to ensure that some of the far reaching proposals emanating from the CRC's report on decentralization such as the election of Chief Executives at the local level are given the needed impetus."
He said Government would mainstream the concept of Local Economic Development (LED) to facilitate, develop and implement employment creation programmes based on the natural resource endowments and the comparative advantages of every district.
President Mahama noted that government would continue to strengthen decentralized local governance system by implementing the programme aimed at establishing the remaining seven decentralized departments of the district assemblies.
"We would also identify new departments for decentralization whose capacities are needed by the district assemblies such as the departments of Women and of Children and the Statistical Service".
He said Government would commence a programme for the provision of administrative, economic and social infrastructure for the 106 new districts created in 2003, 2007 and 2012 and extend the composite budget system to cover the 46 new district assemblies established in 2012.