The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Evils Afriyie Ankrah, has urged Assembly Members to look at issues rationally and logically instead of viewing them with partisan lenses.   

He said the District Assemblies were originally meant to operate on non-partisan basis, with issues handled dispassionately “but today we cannot act as ostriches to pretend that there is no party affiliation in the Assemblies”.   

Mr Ankrah said these when he addressed the fourth session of the Sekyere South District Assembly at Nsuta in the  Ashanti Region.   

He said while the Assembly system had worked well, certain issues had come up strong as defects of the concept.   

Another issue which confronts participatory democracy at the grassroots is the involvement of chiefs, he observed.  

“Traditional authorities have been conspicuously left out in the Assembly concept even though they are perceived to be major stakeholder at the local level”.    

He said it was as a result of such defects that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development initiated the process of reviewing the Local Government Act, ACT 462, which the District Assemblies had been operating since 1993.

PF