The Chamber for Local Governance (ChaLoG), one of Ghana’s governance think tanks, says it will, in the coming days, engage the National House of Chiefs, the office of the National Chief Imam, the Christian Council of Ghana, political parties and all relevant stakeholders to mount pressure on President Akufo-Addo to stop the further delay of nominating the MMDCEs.
The President is on record to have said that the delay in nominating the Metropolitan, Municipal, District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) is largely due to his inability to have the MMDCEs elected directly by the citizens.
However, the Executive Secretary for ChaLoG, Romeo Elikplim Akahoho says the claims by the President are highly untenable and, at best, a blatant abuse of the powers vested in him by the Constitution as the person with the power to nominate MMDCEs for the 260 Metropolitan, Municipal District Assemblies (MMDAs) across the country.
In that light, he said: “ChaLoG wishes to remind the President that what the abotive referendum meant to achieve was the Amendment of Article 55 (3) of Ghana’s 1992 Republican Constitution which, among other things, states: ‘Subject to the provisions of this article, a political party is free to participate in shaping the political will of the people, to disseminate information on political ideas, social and economic programmes of a national character, and sponsor candidates for election to any public office other than to District Assemblies or lower local government unit’.”
He explained that if these amendments were to have been carried through, it would have paved the way for the Local Government System to become partisan, which meant that political parties would have participated in the 2023 and beyond District Assembly and Unit Committee Elections, but not to have automatically led to the election of MMDCEs.
In furtherance, Mr Akahoho said, “ChaLoG wishes to point out to the President that, if he were really committed to the election of MMDCEs (as he is making Ghanaians to believe today), he should have caused Parliament to amend Article 243 (1) of the Constitution which states; ‘There shall be a District Chief Executive for every district who shall be appointed by the President with prior approval of not less than two-thirds majority of the Assembly Members present’. He should have pushed for that for Ghanaians to know that he is truly committed to the election of MMDCEs.”
ChaLoG observed that the continuous delay in appointing MMDCEs is equally retrogressing developments at the local level, hence, the reason it would engage the offices of opinion leaders in the country to bring pressure on the President to appoint MMDCEs immediately.
By: Umar Sheriff Musah