The Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) has launched a report on the assessment of political parties’ manifestos ahead of the December 7 polls.

This forms part of the Centre’s attempts to inform the decisions of electorates, particularly as regards who to vote for as president in the upcoming elections.

Explaining the processes involved in compiling the report, Director of Advocacy and Public Engagement at CDD-Ghana, Dr. Kojo Asante said it involved three main stages which began with agenda-setting. A stage which comprised the very inception of manifesto compilation by parties.

He added that the report did not only focus on political parties and their manifestos but also what electorates must look forward to in party manifestos before heading to the polls.

Speaking to GhanaWeb on the sidelines of the launch, Dr. Kojo Asante said; “this was the second phase so we had already published one where we showed all the issues in 10 sectors. This was taking a few sectors and assessing what the parties had put down in terms of their feasibility, relevance…”

Adding that, “the big issue for some of these places apart from the fact that some of its focus too much on input is the cost because the economy we have has so many constraints and we already have a debt challenge.”

With regards to promises made by the two main political parties and the impact on the economy, he said “if promise all these things and you look at your resource envelope it’s very difficult to imagine that you’ll be able to do them…After a while people begin to lose interest in the political process that all these campaign promises they don’t mean anything.”

Addressing how electorates respond to political party manifestos Dr. Asante advised that “the citizens have to understand that we can’t get everything, there’s a tradeoff.”

The report is also part of ‘the Ghana Manifesto Project’ which was launched by the CDD in July this year to enhance the development of manifestos and policies put forth by political parties through the use of credible data and evidence.