Put local governance at par with Parliament to enhance c’nity devt – Gunu

Individuals seeking to serve as lawmakers in Parliament have been urged to consider service at the local as­sembly level to enhance community development.

This is due to the quality of individuals that contest parliamentary seats and their commitment, dedication and determination to attaining the position can be of transforma­tion to local governance, if they seek to also avail themselves at the district level.

James Gunu, the Region­al Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), explained that there was an unhealthy balance of quality between Parliament and the local assemblies which the latter needed to be elevated to help complement the work of the former.

Making the call after the vetting of aspirants for the upcoming primaries of the NDC, he said parliamentary aspirants with their resources would not only improve the quality of the membership of the assemblies but would also work to benefit community progress, growth and development.

“I want to encourage parlia­mentary aspirants that politics is not all about going to Parliament, I also believe in our local gov­ernance system, that many of them should be concerned about deepening our decentralised and local governance system by taking advantage of the next assembly elections.

“Pushing all good materials into Parliament affects the quality at the assembly level because if you elect weaker assembly mem­bers and stronger members of Parliament, the superstructure will be heavier than the substructure.

“We must look at this to have a balanced system of parliamentary democracy and decentralised gov­ernance in the country since both opportunities bring advantages and aspirants should consider the assembly so as to accelerate prog­ress, growth and development of communities,” Mr Gunu pointed out.

He revealed that all the 75 aspirants contesting the parliamen­tary primaries were cleared at the vetting, and those that would not make it to Parliament should look at contributing towards making the assemblies resourceful to im­prove livelihoods.

According to him, there were exceptional and resourceful people but out of the 75, only 18 would enter Parliament and appealed to the rest to endeavour to use their exceptional and resourcefulness to enhance the work of the assem­blies.

Mr Gunu said the parliamenta­ry primaries would be held on May 13 in all constituencies, and there were a total of 15 women among the 75 aspirants and all of them

 had signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the contest, its processes and outcome.