INTRODUCTION African country to publicly declare its intention to accede to the APRM. The country was also among the first six countries to officially declare its intention to accede to the APRM when the subject was first raised at the 5th HSGIC meeting on November 3, 2002 in Abuja, Nigeria. Again, when it came to signing the Memorandum of Understanding to officially accede to the APRM, Ghana demonstrated faith by being among the first twelve countries to accede in March 2003. Further to this demonstration of faith in the APRM, the Government created the Ministry of Regional Cooperation and NEPAD, the first of its kind in Africa in May 2003 to among others to spearhead the implementation of NEPAD and prepare the country to actualize the tenets of the APRM to foster good governance. With the political leadership committed to use the APRM as a useful instrument to entrench democracy, good governance and popular participation not only in Ghana but Africa in general it embraced the APRM as an open, participatory and transparent process through an extensive national consultation process. In line with the APRM principles of national ownership and leadership, based on an open and participatory process that fosters transparency and accountability and to ensure that the review is technically competent, credible and free from political manipulation, emphasis was placed on stakeholder leadership and ownership of the APRM. With national consultation and all-inclusiveness at the heart of the APRM, the autonomy and non-interference in the work of the structures to undertake the country self-assessment was stressed to engender integrity, impartiality, transparency, objectivity, professionalism and a non-partisan national exercise. In line with these principles and following a wide range of consultations with relevant stakeholders, including all the chairmen and ranking members of all select committees in parliament, political parties, the media and a number of civil society organizations, a seven member National APRM Governing Council (NAPRM-GC) made up of men and women who have demonstrated public spiritedness, integrity and professionalism was established. It is important to underscore that the NAPRM-GC was not set up to operationally conduct the country self-assessment and prepare the GNPOA. Rather the Governing Council provided a leadership and oversight role that ensured that the ownership of the APRM process including the generation of the GNPOA is driven by stakeholders including the Government, the Private Sector, Civil Society Organizations and others. With the Governing Council and its Secretariat providing strategic leadership and policy guidance as well as managerial and support services how to first operationalize the APRM questionnaire as a national broad-based consultative and participatory process devoid of political manipulation and which is technical, scientific, objective and professional remained unanswered. Second, there was the need to anchor the national consultation and assessment including the generation of issues in respect of the 156