Partisanship Affects Consensus Building � Prez

President John Dramani Mahama has stated that strong partisanship in Ghana is affecting consensus building on development issues. That, he said, had also affected confidence and trust building in the body-politic. He was speaking yesterday at a seminar on, "�The Norwegian Model� of Tripartite Co-operation�, in Oslo, Norway, organised by the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) as part of his official visit to that country. He said the partisanship was such that opposition parties often sought to make a sitting government unpopular, adding that the moment a sitting government lost an election, its members took a swipe at everything the new government did. Trust President Mahama said the history of Africa had often made it difficult for the people to trust their leaders. That situation, he said, had been worsened by issues of corruption, lack of transparency and weak institutions. He, however, gave an assurance that structures were being set up to ensure that the institutions worked to perfection, while people performed their duties without looking under the table for envelopes. CBAs Touching on the Norwegian situation in which all labour unions negotiated at the same time every two years to ensure industrial harmony, President Mahama said it was a good model that Ghana should consider adopting. That way, he said, stakeholders would be assured of industrial harmony for two years after negotiations. Tripartite The President said Ghana too had a tripartite system involving labour, employers and the government which negotiated the minimum wage and the base pay. He said Ghana needed to synchronise its systems to enhance social dialogue. Consensus based A lecturer at the University of Oslo, Professor Kalle Moene, who shared his perspectives on the Norwegian model, said Norway was able to make it because there was much trust among the parties. He said the high level of trust was what had accounted for industrial harmony in the Norwegian system. For his part, Mr Rolf Nergard of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise said what guided the operations of the Norwegian Model was the need to improve efficiency and management of the people to increase productivity.