Politics

Election of MMDCEs will democratise local governance–Oduro Osae

Dr Oduro Osae, the Technical Advisor, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, has urged the citizenry to vote massively in favour of the election of metropolitan municipal and district chief executives (MMDCE) during the December 17 referendum.

“The election of MMDCEs will mean that Ghanaians fully democratise their local government system, just as they did at the national level as part of roadmap towards the election of MMDCEs, there was a bill in parliament to amend Article 243(1) to take the power away from the president and give it back to the citizenry to now elect MMDCEs,” he stressed.

Dr Osae asked the citizenry to discuss with their Members of Parliament (MPs), who represented them to vote in approval of the Bill once Article 243 (1) was approved, the next important Article to be amended was Article 55(3), an entrenched provision, which Parliament could not use its numbers to approve of.

“We will require national referendum to be held for the country to approve of before amendment can be effective and efficient, come December 17, referendum will be held on Article 55(3) to allow for multi-partisan local government.

 “When you go to the electoral officer, they will give you three ballot papers, one for the assembly member, one for the unit committee member and the other one, which has a “yes” or “no” on it for the referendum.

“Once approval was given in referendum for election of MMDCEs, the citizenry will now elect MMDCEs on multi-partisan basis, just as for MPs and the president, once that happens, we have fully democratised our local government system just as at national level, constitution requires referendum, 40 per cent of qualified voters will vote with 75 per cent vote “yes” in favour of referendum.

“If referendum is successful, parliament will have to amend Article 55(3) to pave way for election of MMDCEs, after successful referendum, 2020 will be used for preparation and campaign towards MMDCEs election, politically, parties will prepare their candidates, independent people who want to put themselves up for election as MMDCEs will start preparing themselves.

“The election of MMDCEs will take place in June or July, 2021, when the current MMDCEs tenure of office ends, we have been given opportunity to elect our presidents, MPs, MMDCEs for long time and power given back to us.” GNA

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