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Kpone Katamanso holds durbar on referendum

The Kpone Katamanso Metropolitan Assembly has organised a community durbar on the forthcoming National Referendum and District Level Election slated for December 17, 2019.

Date Created : 12/14/2019 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : Elizabeth Baah

The durbar was to whip-up public interest in the election and mobilise the citizenry towards attaining a higher voter turnout during the exercise, which is key in the Referendum.

Mr. Solomon Tettey Appiah the Municipal Chief Executive for Kpone-Katamanso Municipal Assembly said the 1992 Constitution provided for the decentralisation and local governance that created a platform for the citizens to take part in decisions in local governance and also establish major areas of relationship between the local and the central government.

He said Ghana had a long history which predated from colonialism, but the current decentralisation policy was initiated in 1998.

Dr. Nicholas Awortwi, Director, Institute of Local Governance Studies said the December 17 exercise was to amend a section of the constitution that forbade the participation of political parties in local government election.

According to him decentralization policy gave too much of responsibility to the local level, yet the power and resources needed to function were inadequate.

â€œSo people who were asked to work at the local level had no power as a result, everything they did was dictated to them by the central government adding that this was practised from 1957 up until 1988, where there was an idea of bringing devolution to the people where power would have been given to the local people.

Mr. Awotwi said because Ghana was under military regime at that time, the citizens could elect their people, but had no power to elect their Municipal District Executives.

He said the current President was willing to change that system and to give the power to the citizens to elect their Metropolitan Municipal District Chief Executives (MMDCE).

"So the December 17 referendum is to ask Ghanaians whether the constitution of Ghana which forbade political parties to participate in local government election should be maintained or changed", he said.

He said voting YES was going to be a game changer because many laws that forbade Ghana's local development would change.

According to him, if Ghanaians on the other hand voted NO it then means they do want the participation of political parties in local government election.

Mr Awotwi said the critique of the YES vote was that by implementing multiparty local governance system, corruption would be on the increase because the party system would be used as a means of siphoning money from the district.

He said the Auditor General's report for 2018 showed that corruption was not a local government issue but the centre adding that out of the GH¢1.3 billion that local government managed, only GH¢26.3 million representing 2 per cent was not accounted for, but at the central government level GH¢5.2 billion was not accounted for.

He explained that the exercise required referendum because article 55 sub 3 was an entrenched clause in the constitution that could not be changed by parliament because the power to amend was with the people.

For article 55 sub 3 to become relevant, there is an additional clause which was article 243 sub 1, which talks about the appointment of MMDCEs by the president was now at parliament to be amended, he said.

He said the amendment process went through two stages without implementation and if government failed to amend before December 17, the referendum exercise would become critical adding that the referendum was not based on partisan, but was about the process of electing leadership.

Madam Lucille Annan Director of National Commission for Civil Education cautioned Ghanaians to weigh two sides of the issue before making a decision as to vote Yes or No.