Tarkwa (W/R), May 29, GNA - Mr Orpheus Mensah, Wassa West District Director of National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has said Ghanaians should take pride in constitutional democracy, because the underlying philosophy of Ghana's political institutions serve as a model for aspiring people in Africa.

However, he said, civic education was essential to sustain the constitutional democracy.

Mr Mensah said this at the inauguration of Wassa West District Civic Union at Tarkwa. The Union is made up of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Tailors and Dressmakers Association, Hairdressers and Beauticians Association, Electronic Service Technician Associations, Photographers and Fitters.

It was under the theme "citizen's participation to development, a Challenge to the Civic Union".

Mr Mensah said "the habit of the mind, as well as 'habits of the hear', the disposition that inform democratic ethos are not inherited", adding, "each new generation is a new people that must acquire the knowledge, learn the skills, and develop the disposition or traits of private and public character that under gird a constitutional democracy".

A representative of Government Accountability Improvement Trust II (GAIT II) an NGO, Mr George Yeboah, said the issues of development were becoming complex each passing day for developing countries such as Ghana and it was evident that, government alone could not shoulder all the problems of development.

He said as the nation attempted to reduce poverty to the barest minimum, it behoved all citizens to put all hands on deck. Mr Yeboah said all over the world, the role of civil society organizations in development was being recognized, saying, civil society was now becoming active participants in the process of governance and could be initiators of development programmes, source of finance and implementers, if they were properly consulted and involved in the decision making process.

In view of this, leaders or people in the forefront needed to continuously seek to sharpen skills so that they could effectively involve the communities, which they sought to serve in all programming. Mr Ebo Kessie, who deputized for Wassa West District Chief Executive said the Union should work in concert with the Assembly to develop the district.

Though, he said democracy had given way for freedom of speech, there was also a responsibility that accompanied that freedom, saying, sometimes it was appalling to hear certain pronouncements on air. He advised the Union to be ware of unguarded utterances that would drag the name of the union into disrepute. Mr Ato Paintsil, headteacher, University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) basic schools, who chaired the function advised the members not to make the Union look as if it was a witch hunting one but as a group to participate in development. He advised the members to eschew lukewarm attitude towards the Union but all hands should be on deck to make the Union put up good performance. 29 May 06