Birim North adopts house-to-house campaign for referedum
The Birim North District Assembly in the Eastern Region has adopted a house-to-house campaign strategy to educate residents of New Abirem and its surrounding communities to vote “Yes” in the upcoming referendum and district assembly elections.
The move is to ensure that people, especially the electorate in the district, understand the reason government is pushing for the people to elect their own choice of Metropolitan Municipal and District Chief Executives ( MMDCEs).
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Vision
Addressing residents as well as students and other stakeholders at a launch in New Abirem the district capital, the District Chief Executive ( DCE ) for Birim North, Mr Remond Nana Damptey, said the December 17 referendum required the approval of all Ghanaians to make President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision to be realised.
The launch attracted over 300 residents of New Abirem, including students from senior high schools (SHSs ) as well as market women, traditional rulers, pastors, teachers, aspiring assembly members and persons with disability ( PWDs ) who were all ready to support the assembly with the referendum campaign to vote “Yes”.
Mr Damptey encouraged the youth who had turned 18 years and above to vote “Yes” to make it easier for parliamentary approval on the election of MMDCEs.
High turn-out
“If you look at past assembly elections in Ghana, it has been characterised by low turn-out of voters and I believe that the one to be held this year will see improvement and a massive turn-out of 100 per cent because of the referendum. Let’s come out and support the good leadership vision of the government to ensure a successful conduct of the referendum. All traditional rulers, the clergy, traders, aspiring assembly members, students, pastors, teachers and persons with disability must rise up and actively participate in the referendum and vote “Yes”, Mr Damptey stated.
Rise up
Students, Mr Damptey explained, must also rise up and join the education campaign to educate their own parents, relatives, friends and family members to better understand the referendum’s main objective.
Mr Damptey entreated students at the senior high school ( SHS ) level in the district to begin to amplify their voices on the referendum.
“We need your maximum support for the amendment of Article 55 ( 3 ) and need 40 per cent massive turn-out as well as securing 40 per cent which I know will translate into more votes to secure 75 per cent of the total “Yes” votes”, the DCE said.
Mr Damptey appealed to all assembly aspirants to also tell the voters about the need for them to vote “Yes ” during the referendum as they continued to campaign for votes.
Development
Touching on infrastructure development in the district, Mr Damptey stated that under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the district had witnessed unprecedented infrastructure development which included classroom blocks and CHPS compounds.
For his part, the Chief of New Abirem, Obirempong Akwasi Amo Tweretwie I, appealed to the people to see the referendum as an important exercise by voting “Yes”.
According to him, “we owe it a duty to make history for Ghana for the first time that MMDCEs would be elected by the people to promote effective and efficient accountability”.
The citizens, Obrempong Amo Tweretwie stated, would give the people more power to vote out any MMDCE for non-performance.
Nana Amo Tweretwie I, therefore, called on the people of New Abirem and its environs to vote massively to compel Parliament to amend Article 55 ( 3 ) in the 1992 Constitution to give extra power to the chiefs and people of New Abirem to elect their own MMDCEs.