President John Dramani Mahama said government would continue to pursue good governance, transparency and the fight against corruption, which formed an integral part of the Agenda for Transformation.

He said the country’s progress in the area of good governance had been commendable, as it ranks high in all major governance indicators such as human rights, transparency and rule of law assessments coupled with a vibrant civil society and media, which operate in a very free and open environment.

“I have remained resolute to the key principles of good governance as enshrined in our Constitution because it is the right thing to do. Indeed, citizen involvement and participation in the development process are important ingredients in realizing our development aspirations” he said.

President Mahama said this in Accra when he delivered the State of the Nation’s Address in Parliament on Thursday.

He gave the assurance that the government would continue to engage the people through regular interaction with Chiefs, workers, religious leaders, farmers, students, the business community, market women and all other sections of the populace.

He said last year, government’s engagement and interaction with the citizenry was enhanced with the introduction of the Government for the People (G4P) forums.

“The G4P forum provided a good platform for government to explain the benefits of our policies, and offer the people an opportunity to give feedback. We must make every effort to sustain the achievements we have made over the years in promoting good governance, enhancing accountability and combating corruption,” he said.

He said Ghana has made significant progress towards achieving full decentralization, despite the challenges with fiscal decentralization.

He said, last year, the internally generated funds of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) increased as a result of the different programmes in place to achieve full fiscal decentralization.

“My resolve to address the sanitation challenge facing us has led to the creation of a comprehensive environmental sanitation programme, which has three components – National Sanitation Day, Composting and Recycling and Waste Separation”.

“So far we have successfully marked a number of National Sanitation Days aimed at mobilizing all of us to clean our environments. Currently, the National Service Scheme is supporting the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development by deploying trained national service personnel to gather data on household disposal to serve as a basis for distribution of waste bins to households that currently have none,” he said.

President Mahama said the primary objective of the collaborative effort was to arrest waste at the point of production and minimize the current environmental sanitation challenges.

He said, the national sanitation day initiative must be augmented with behavioural change, proper waste disposal and waste management systems, and urged all to commit to that.