Some residents in the Yilo Krobo Municipal say the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) is a positive step to get competent people to represent government at the district level for good governance.
A constitutional referendum will be held in Ghana on 17 December, 2019, alongside district levels election. The proposed amendments to the constitution would allow for the direct election of MMDCEs and also allow political parties to be involved in local elections.
The proposed changes would involve amending article 243(1), which provides for the appointment of MMDCEs by the president, and article 55(3), which bans political party activity in district-level elections. As article 55 is an entrenched clause, the referendum requires a turnout of at least 40% and over 70% of those voting in favor for the proposal to be passed.
According to the public who spoke to Rite FM’s Sylvester Tetteh, the appointment of MMDCEs by presidents do not bring competent people and therefore no developmental and infrastructural projects are done in the various metropolitan, municipal and districts, resulting in hindrance of the country’s growth.
Ghana currently runs a political system, where mayors are appointed by ruling party members and this often affects the development of the various communities.
“When elections are held for the various MMDCEs, it will help because sometimes some of them are not competent for the position but because the president have appointed them, they do it the way they like and so when elections are conducted it will put competent people there and will therefore bring competition, since more people may contest for the position,” a driver added.
The direct election of MMDCEs was a campaign promise of three presidential candidate in the 2016 general elections; Nana Akuffo-Addo of NPP, John Dramani of NDC and Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom of PPP .
Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) has announced December 17, 2019 as the date for voting to determine if the country would adopt a system, where municipal, metropolitan and district chief executives (MMDCEs) will be elected.
Source: ritefmonline.org/Sylvester Tetteh.
