Ghanaians State FOUR Most Most Important Problems Confronting Them

Ghanaians have stated in an opinion poll that the four most important problems confronting them at the moment are the high cost of living, unemployment, poverty and corruption, in order of importance. This was contained in the outcome of an opinion poll carried out by Research International in April this year, a copy of which has been sighted by the New Statesman. In a list of 15 possible choices, from which they were entitled to choose, 37% out of the 4,598 respondents sampled stated in unequivocal terms that the much touted attainment of single-digit inflation was not being reflected in the prices of goods and services on the market, as the cost of living in Ghana keeps going up. 1,241 respondents, representing 27% of the total number sampled, stated that unemployment, in their opinion, was the most important problem facing them. They seemed to disagree with assertions by the NDC government that it had created some 1.7 million jobs since taking office in 2009. It is a well-known fact that 44.8 per cent of graduates from the Universities, Polytechnics and other tertiary institutions are jobless, in addition to an estimated quarter of a million school leavers thrown onto the streets each year from the Junior High School system. With the World Bank estimating that half a million Ghanaians fell below the poverty line in 2011, not surprisingly, 9% of respondents stated that the incidence of rising poverty under the Mills-Mahama administration was the third most important problem affecting them. 5% of respondents said corruption in Ghana was their most important problem, coming on the back of corruption scandals that have hit the country under the current administration, particularly the Woyome/Waterville/CP scandals. In the same opinion poll, when asked �What are the most important failures of the NDC government?� respondents stated that the increase in fuel prices, unemployment, corruption and judgement debts as the four most important failures of the Mills-Mahama NDC administration. In March 2011, Research International�s poll on what Ghanaians perceived to be the four most important failures of President Mills administration revealed increase in fuel prices, unemployment, corruption and road accidents as what Ghanaians believed to be the major failures of the NDC. After riding on the wave of promising to �reduce the prices of fuel drastically� if elected President only to win power and rather increase the prices of fuel drastically, an overwhelming number of Ghanaians have stated that the sharp u-turn performed by President Mills in relation to fuel prices is the most important failure in his 4 years in office. The promise in its 2008 manifesto �to create jobs for every able bodied Ghanaian desiring employment or, at least, reduce unemployment to the barest minimum� has also been described as a failure with respondents citing unemployment as the second most important failure of the NDC administration. Corruption under the Mills-Mahama came in as the third most important failure. The Judgement debt scandal, of which the Woyome scandal received the most mention, was deemed by respondents as the most important failure of the Mills administration. The 4,598 respondents were drawn from across the ten regions of the country with 50 % being males and 50% females. An average of 20 people was interviewed in each of the 230 constituencies. Research International is a full service Research Agency that handles research projects and has over 19 years of gathered presence in Ghana with rich experience in Survey design, Data collection (Computer Aided & Face to Face interviewing), Data processing, Data analysis and Reporting in both qualitative and quantitative research areas.