Parliament urged to pass Article 243 in time

A Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Kwesi Jonah, has urged Parliament to pass Article 243 in time to allow for the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) since adequate consultations and political consensus had been reached and the needful in time.

“Consultations by civil society organizations (CSOs) are going on well and what is needed is aggressive media campaign for a successful and peaceful referendum on December 17, 2019 to allow or disallow the participation of political parties in district level elections,” he noted.

Mr Jonah was speaking at training seminar for selected journalists on ‘Constitutional, Regulatory and Political Processes of the December 17, 2019 referendum and district level elections’ at Nyanyano in the Central Region was organised by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) with funding from Star Ghana Foundation on the theme: ‘Enhanced Media-CSO Partnership for Inclusive Local Governance.’

“Allowing political parties to participate in local governance and election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives is international best practice and I urge the citizenry to vote “yes” in the referendum to allow political parties to participate actively in the elections.

“The country has every good reason to vote “yes” because it will change political dynamics, reduce national election tension, ensure speedy fixing of sanitation, health and water challenges at local levels,” Mr Jonah noted.

Dr Eric Osae, Technical Advisor, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, indicated that he would be “highly disappointed” if Parliament failed to pass Article 243 because the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) promised election of MMDCEs in their 2016 manifestos and ought to commit to the processes.

“The burden has been shifted from executive to legislature, election of MMDCEs will be mid-term assessment for governments, fast track development at local level, innovation in delivery of services, ensure inclusiveness, taking away winner takes all, democratise local government, power to the citizenry, grow smaller political parties and also avert two party system.

Roland Affail Monney, GJA President, charged media practitioners to double their efforts to ensure 40 per cent turnout and over 75 per cent “yes” vote for the December 17, 2019 referendum.

 Kojo Impraim, Programmes Manager, GJA/Star Ghana Project, said knowledge management session would create platform for purposeful collaboration between journalists and Star Ghana grant partners to promote inclusive local governance. -GNA

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