Politics

NCCE cautions against political colouration of its activities on referendum

The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has cautioned the citizenry to stop political colouration of its activities in relation to the December 17, 2019 referendum and the district level elections.

It said the incessant unsavoury personality attacks were often targeted to impugn the reputation of the Commission with unfounded political allegations aimed at creating disaffection among the populace.

Consequently, it reminded them that members of the Commission were people of high repute and independent who could not be manipulated by any politician or political party to do their bidding.

 Paul Tetteh, the Assin-Fosu Municipal Director of the Commission, cautioned at a sensitisation, education and awareness creation programme held at Assin-Fosu on the upcoming district level elections and the referendum.

Giving accounts of his personal ordeal, he revealed how some politicians in the two major political parties had maligned him with verbal assaults and doubted his professionalism, neutrality and integrity as a civic educator.

“The Commission works to promote and sustain democracy and good governance and inculcates in the citizenry, the education, sensitisation and awareness of our rights and obligations, through civic education,” and underscored the important role “assembly members played in the local government system, it is imperative to elect people who can analyse issues critically and make constructive debates”.

“Community development requires development-oriented people to represent their constituents, we must elect knowledgeable, skillful, capable and competent persons as assembly members, many local communities are under-developed because assembly members are not able to push for pressing needs to be captured in assemblies’ growth and development plans,” Mr Tetteh bemoaned.

Stating the essence of the referendum, he explained that the event, scheduled for December 17, is to allow the citizenry to vote for the amendment of constitutional provision, which currently prevented political parties from participating in district level elections.

Mr Tetteh observed that the referendum was not an election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives but to introduce multi-party participation in the local government system if given the nod.

Mr Tetteh noted that the provision, as entrenched in the 1992 Constitution, could only be amended if 40 per cent of eligible voters showed up to vote and 75 per cent of them voted ‘yes’ in favour of amendment of Article 55(3) to make room for political parties to sponsor candidates for district assemblies and lower local government units. -GNA

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