The referendum which seeks to make District Assembly Elections partisan must attract at least, 40 percent voter turn out and also garnner at least 75 percent of the voters who vote yes per the dictates of the constitution of Ghana.
National Association for Local Authorities of Ghana NALAG is the mouth piece for the 260 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies MMDAs in Ghana.
As an association, the National Association for Local Authorities of Ghana NALAG mainly focuses on lobbying for policies and Programmes that are favorable to it’s members.
NALAG in preparation for the forth coming refrendun has organized a sensitization and stakeholders forum to engage its members on the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives MMDCEs at Wa.
Members of NALAG include MMDCEs and assembly members among others.
Even though all assemblies have been dissolved and there are no sitting assembly members, NALAG believes that they were the appropriate agents that could educate the electorate on the up coming referendum.
According to NALAG’s Programmes Officer, Joseph Owusu the referendum would allow members who live in the MMDAs to vote for their choice of MMDCEs if the referendum achieved ‘yes’ votes.
He added that the ‘yes’ vote in the referendum would also allow assembly member aspirants to use colors and symbols of their respective political parties and also afford the parties to sponsor their candidates.
The Programmes Officer of NALAG explained that there was fear among the political parties.
He stated that because there were lack of understanding about the process, the parties feared that if party A won In a particular MMDA, and party B was in government, party A could manipulate the development agenda of the ruling government in that particular area.
However, he clarified that once the election of MMDCEs became partisan, the statutory deductions such as the District Assembly Common Fund DACF would continue to go to the assemblies and the MMDCE must do what is expected of him regardless of his party affiliation.
Joseph Owusu said while some MMDCEs thought that they would have a secured turner of office but they fear that they could be voted out of office if their elections became partisan.
He highlighted that some MMDCEs were not helping to educate the populace to vote yes because they were afraid of losing their jobs.
Joseph Owusu therefore stressed that NALAG in collaboration with the Inter Ministerial Coordinating Committee on decentralization IMCC were engaging the public for them to understand what lies ahead.
“Other countries have done it and it is helping them. people fear that when we do it, it will bring a whole lot of misunderstanding and other things. We have to start something first. If we start something the the issues will come and we will engage ourselves look at the way forward and see how best we are able to resolve them and I believe that we would get a good local government policy for our country as it is happening in other countries”. He recommended.
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