An encyclopaedia definition of social justice refers to the concept of a society in which justice is achieved in every aspect of society, rather than merely the administration of law. It is generally thought of as a world which affords individuals and groups fair treatment and an impartial share of the benefits of society. Different political leanings have developed different interpretations of what constitutes fair treatment and an impartial share. Social justice is both a philosophical problem and an important issue in politics, religion and civil society. Most individuals wish to live in a just society, but different political ideologies have different conceptions of what a 'just society' actually is.

The term "social justice" is often employed by the political left to describe a society with a greater degree of economic egalitarianism, which may be achieved through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or property redistribution. The right wing also uses the term social justice, but generally believes that a just society is best achieved through the operation of a free market, which they believe provides equality of opportunity and promotes philanthropy and charity. Both the right and the left tend to agree on the importance of rule of law, human rights, and some form of a welfare safety net (though the left supports this last element to a greater extent than the right).

In Ghana, the main elements of social justice would be these agreement points of the importance of rule of law, human rights, and some form of a welfare safety net in the area of education, health, housing and poverty alleviation. It is against this background that I want to examine the term and how the term “social justice” is being applied by the left and right in Ghanaian politics, the NPP representing the right and the CPP and NDC representing the left.

The PNDC used the term "social justice" to create a false economic egalitarianism, which they be achieved through progressive attack on the rich, distribution of PAMSCAD and ERP money among themselves and redistribution of national factories and industries among their cronies under Emmanuel Agbodo’s Divestiture Implementation Committee. The NDC, as a successive government but a constitutional one, was expected to right the wrongs of the PNDC era, redistribute wealth fairly, return confiscated assets, open up education, review health, open up social housing and introduce a root and branch welfare reforms. With all these economic interventions of the World bank-IMF and donor countries you would have expected the NDC when it came to power to have the proper pillars of economic stability in place to open up the country with social programmes. The Ghanaian economy slipped back into crisis in the third quarter of 1990s. Poor macroeconomic management, particularly through fiscal indiscipline, and adverse external economic conditions - low cocoa and gold prices, and high oil prices – caused the macroeconomic fundamentals to be weak. Inflation accelerated and interest rates became unbearably high. Large fiscal imbalances persisted causing Government to borrow more from the domestic economy, thus crowding out the private sector. The fiscal excesses have led to the rapid build up of domestic debt. The NDC could not fulfil most of its social justice promises because of the weakness of the economy.

It was no wonder that in 2001, when a new Government won the people’s mandate to rule the country, they opted for a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) status.

The NPP therefore took advantage of the HIPC and debt forgiveness as a result to open up on a massive social justice agenda. They have therefore used the term social justice to mean that a just society is best achieved by welfare safety nets in education, health, wealth creation and redistribution in a mix with the principles of free market, which they believe provides equality of opportunity and promotes individual and group enterprise while not compromising on the importance of rule of law, human rights.

In education the so called elitist NPP who supposedly care only cared for the few and have more school children enrolled in primary school than ever in Ghana’s history. Prudent management of finances in Ghana has made it possible for the government to pay the capitation grant and bring into the educational stream many, many more children than would have had the opportunity to go to school. This is one of the most important acts of social justice since the beginning of our independence as a free people. If you look at the statistics of those who have enrolled in our primary schools, 50% of them fall in the bracket of 9-13. An extra 50% of those are also young girls. It tells you one thing that without the Capitation Grant these children would not have gone to school. Today they are going to school in Ghana. What was thought to be impossible 10 years ago by the NDC that the implementation of Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) was impossible has proved to be possible. The NPP government was the first to lift the FCUBE from the walls of our Constitution and turned it into reality. My appeal any future government will be to add a specific agenda to the policy to ensure that every Ghanaian child is not left behind. The only way to ensure that every Ghanaian child matters is to ensure that we have an agenda of specific outcomes whereby every child achieves and enjoys free education, stays safe in school, and is well fed. By doing this we are not only achieving our millennium developing goals but also securing Ghana’s future

In health, when the NPP came into office they met a system whereby if you fell ill and went to hospital the doctors could not care for you if you did not have money. The system was “cash and carry”. The most inhumane system of health care that our country has known so that many poor people when they fell ill and went into hospital couldn’t get treated. Today the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has come to Ghana and has covered nearly 50% of our population and already it is proving to be a much more humane, much more accessible and proving to be a much better system of health care than Ghana has seen for a long time. So it has taken the so called elitist party to have taken these important steps for protecting the interest and the rights the citizens of our country. It is also a fact that many more are to start benefiting soon pending the release of their identity cards. The National Ambulance Service (NAS) now has 19 Ambulance stations and two control rooms which are operational in the following regions: Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Central and Volta. Not less than 91 ambulances have been procured for the NAS. Over 176 health infrastructure projects are ongoing throughout the country. They include; 22 District hospitals, 50 health centres and 26 (CHPS) – Community Health and Planning System. The National Accident and Emergency Centre and Mortuary at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital are now operational. There is now a newly completed 80-bed modern hospital at Gushiegu. The passage of the Law on Disability (Act 782) also means that disabled persons can be brought into the mainstream of development. It is also a fact that a governing board and a secretariat headed by an Executive Secretary are being put in place to operationalise the law.

In the areas of salary and structural adjustment it has taken NPP the so-called elitist party to move away from the Ghana Universal Salary Structure (GUSS) into the establishment of a Fair Wages Commission to ensure fairness in the Wage System and help to reduce industrial disputes to a large extent. It has taken a rightist party to establish the National Labour Commission. It could not take the (P) NDC, the socialist party to set up a national network of employment for our young people but supervised an educational system that churned out dog-chain sellers. It took the NPP to set up The National Youth Employment Programme which as at now has rolled out seven out of ten of its modules but has already employed over 108,000 of our young people in the seven strategic modules; Agric-Bus-Crop, Community Education (Teaching & Volunteer Teachers), Community Protection Unit, Health Extension Workers, Waste and Sanitation, Internship, and sub-modules (Forestry and revenue mobilisation).

In a social programme aimed at decreasing inequality, NPP government has established loans and car packages to teachers and health workers meant to enhance the welfare of the people involved. It is also the NPP government that has taken the first step since Nkrumah’s “Northern Scholarship” to establish the Northern Region Development Fund with a seed capital of 25 million new Ghana cedis and also establish the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme in the regions This is meant to benefit the extremely poor from his own constituency who do not have productive capacity. Beneficiaries include orphan vulnerable children, the aged above 65 years with no support and persons with severe disability. The amounts which are being disbursed range from GH¢8.00 to GH¢15.00 per household.

And finally one area that the NDC deserve credit is the area of press freedom indeed all the major private radio stations that have been in operation in Ghana (the Joy FM, Peace FM, Adom FM, Gold FM etc) were all licensed under the NDC. However it took the repeal of the Criminal libel Law by an NPP led administration to get them to operate freely. In Parliament the minority said that the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law would bring chaos and anarchy. The NPP took a different view. They felt that the freer the individual to express himself the better would be his contribution to the growth and development of the society. The NDC who cried anarchy and chaos are the best beneficiaries of it.

In conclusion the freedom and basic value of welfare of the Ghanaian are inextricably intertwined and it is only in the conditions of freedom that the genius of the Ghanaian character will come forth and flourish. We are seeing that in Ghana today and this is the concept of social justice that holds for our people. On the balance of probability the rightist party of NPP is proving to merge the two schools of thoughts in the concept of social justice on the importance of rule of law, human rights, and some form of a welfare safety net.

Kwesi Atta-Krufi Hayford
Email: hattakrufi@hotmail.com