Election of MMDCEs must be given attention
An important national conversation such as the election of metropolitan, municipal, district chief executives can never be glossed over or be a back-burner issue.
Advertisement
This is because it is at the base of participatory democracy.
The issue keeps coming up at different forums. No wonder, as reported in the Daily Graphic yesterday, the Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Dan Botwe, has underscored the government’s desire to revisit the unfinished agenda towards legal reforms to facilitate the election of MMDCEs.
One primary goal of the 1992 Constitution is to decentralise the structure of governance in Ghana so that the government will be brought closer to the people.
The fundamental barrier is two constitutional amendments. These constitutional amendments hold the prospect of breaking this barrier to effective political decentralisation.
While one seeks to allow for the election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) by citizens (amending Article 243(1) of the 1992 Ghana Constitution), the other will introduce multiparty competition in local government elections (amending Article 55(3) of the 1992 Ghana Constitution).
The government, between 2018 and 2019, pursued the amendment of Article 55(3) to enable multiparty participation in the districts and Article 243(1) for the election of MMDCEs, to reform the local governance system and devolve more power and resources to the local communities.
However, the national referendum scheduled for December 17, 2019, was truncated because of the lack of adequate public knowledge and broad-based national consensus, when the National Democratic Congress signalled its inability to back the repeal.
The situation compelled the government to withdraw the two bills that sought to amend Articles 55(3), an entrenched provision in the 1992 Constitution and 243(1).
The two bills were seeking to allow the participation of political parties in local level elections by being able to sponsor candidates and to also make the election of MMDCEs possible by taking away the powers of the President to appoint them.
The Daily Graphic has maintained the view that the truncation of the referendum was quite unfortunate bearing in mind the strong attachment of the Ghanaian people to multiparty democratic elections.
Available statistics indicate that on the average, the turnout for national elections in the 4th Republic has been 72 per cent, one of the highest in the world, while the turnout for the non-partisan local government elections has always hovered around 30 per cent.
We believe that the calls by political and non-political actors for the review of Article 243 (1) of the 1992 Constitution to pave the way for the election,] of MMDCEs on the ticket of political parties should not be trivialised.
This is because the review or amendment will allow for more inclusive representation and enable the country to realise fully the benefits of good governance and help accelerate national development.
Again, the election of MMDCEs will also ensure accountability and help bring development to the various districts and reduce the powers of the Executive in our local governance system so that the people can benefit from democratic dividends.
This, the Daily Graphic believes, will afford the citizenry the opportunity to also elect their chief executives at the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies apart from a President and a Member of Parliament.
To further support the argument, in a recent survey by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), 76 per cent of Ghanaians wanted the election of MMDCEs.
We, therefore, reiterate the call for the amendment of Article 243(1) to enable the election of MMDCEs.
There is also the need to build non-partisan/bipartisan support across the board for the proposed constitutional amendments and to educate the public on what constitutes the essential pillars in the construction of firm foundations for an effective, accountable and inclusive decentralised local government.
The Daily Graphic believes that when this is done it will give true meaning to the local government and decentralisation as well as give the opportunity to the citizenry to decide who leads them at the district assembly level as chief executive.
After all, election of MMDCEs implies that we are giving true meaning to former American President Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy as “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
