Osei Bonsu Amoah
The Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Osei
Bonsu Amoah has bemoaned the laissez-faire attitude of political parties
towards campaigning to create awareness and build euphoria in the run up to
December 17 referendum.
Despite parties openly declaring their support for the national
referendum to decide whether District Level Elections would be held along
partisan lines, not much effort he said had been seen on their part, in terms
of using party structures and campaign machinery to sensitise and rally
citizens.
The situation he admitted had negatively affected the ongoing campaign
to get large turnout of voter population who should be in excess of 40 per cent
for the referendum to hold true.
The deputy minister made the remarks in Accra on Wednesday, November 8,
2019, at an Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) roundtable on
“Multi-Party Decentralised Local Governance System in Ghana: What would it
look like?”
Mr Amoah also mentioned the uncertainty in activities and timeline of
the Electoral Commission as hindrance to the campaign effort.
In the meantime, he encouraged interest groups to form coalitions to
champion the agenda as the ministry had months earlier also provided
funding to the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and Information
Service Department (ISD) to start their campaign.
The Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies, Dr Nicholas
Awotwi, suggested a strong collation of stakeholders such as association of
mayors and local government platforms, to push for “a bubble up
approach” to ensure strong local government systems.
By Issah Mohammed
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