Yaw Buaben Asamoa, Director of Communications for NPP
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has appealed to assembly members to approve the President’s list of nominees for the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) positions, by voting massively for them.
According to the party, the swift approvals of the MMDCEs had become necessary, to ensure development at the local governance level was not further delayed due to the appointment of substantive MMDCEs.
The Director of Communications of the NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoa, who made the appeal at a press conference in Accra, urged assembly members who had issues with their nominees to resolve their differences amicably.
He said since assembly elections were supposed to be non-partisan, assembly members should not deny their constituents developmental benefits intended to come to their communities, hence swift approvals of MMDCEs to perform administrative functions.
Mr Asamoa urged the citizenry, especially opposition parties to support the amendment of Article 55(3) to allow for a multi-party contest for MMDCEs and assembly member positions saying “the NPP had promised to make the exercise contestable in the lead up to the 2020 elections, however, a planned referendum in 2019 to make it a reality was aborted after the NDC objected to it”.
“The party is clear about elections on a multi-party platform under governance on page 164 of the 2020 NPP Manifesto, we have said we will and this intention if supported, will help break the syndrome of winner takes all and thereby, stabilize the practice of liberal multi-choice democracy in the country”.
“Apart from the onerous burden on the president to find and appoint MMDCEs, there is also the question of tensions at the operational level as voters prefer to pass their development claims and local needs through Members of Parliament, who struggle to influence development choices and facilitate individual needs through non-partisan assemblies.
“The NPP will continue to engage in order to deliver the best possible outcomes of governance to ensure a credible place for Ghana in the comity of nations as we fight for prosperity, security and stability,” Mr Asamoa noted.
The constitution of Ghana allows the President of the Republic to appoint MMDCEs to represent him across the country however, this year’s selection processes took a different twist, where prospective aspirants for positions had to go through vetting at the regional and national levels.