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The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has organised a Sensitization Workshop on the District Level Elections (DLE) for media practitioners, in Accra, to discharge their duties of promoting good governance and democracy.

The workshop formed part of strategies to whip up the enthusiasm of the electorate and encourage their active participation to improve voter turnout, and its subsequent solutions in the March 3 elections.

It was under the theme: “Democratization, Decentralization and Development”.

Mr Eric Oduro Osae, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the Institute of Local Government Studies, said democratic governance was the order of the day with most countries achieving their national democratic objectives through the implementation of decentralised reforms.

He, therefore, emphasised the importance of citizens’ participation in the governance processes for attaining development; and deepening the achievements of local democratic objectives.

However, he noted that citizens’ participation in local governance activities, including elections, had not met expectations because of inadequate sensitization, education and awareness creation programmes to alert citizens on their respective civic and political roles in the governance landscape.

Mr Osae said the absence of accurate information and feedback to citizens on the nature and operations of the district assembly system had also been identified as part of the challenges.

He quoted Article 35 (6) (d) of the 1992 Constitution as stating that, ‘The State must take appropriate measures to make democracy a reality by decentralizing the administrative and financial machinery of government to the regions and districts by affording all possible opportunities to the people to participate in decision-making at every level of national life and in government’.

Mr Osae said the United Nations Development Programme had sounded the caution that for a nation to attain any sustainable human development, good governance was key, while good governance had also been explained to include a system that had space for participation in decision making at all levels of government-local and community.

Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, a Local Government Expert, said the issue of participation was important in the DLE, therefore, there was no actual legitimacy for Government representation if less than 50 per cent of the entire voting population voted.

On the involvement of partisan politics, he explained that the representation of political parties was restricted to the use of party symbols and colours, as well as the public support by the parties of candidates.

Mr Julius Debrah, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, said the objective of the workshop was to assess the DLE as national issue and not a partisan one, therefore, the media as the Fourth Estate, had to facilitate the realization of that objective.

He said one of the responsibilities of media practitioners was to promote governance and urged them to, consequently, use their platforms and airwaves to educate and encourage the participation to get a high turnout in the election.

Mr Mohammed Ridwan, an Assistant Director at the National Commission for Civic Education, said one of the issues coming up in the contest was insinuation against women contestants and candidates with disability.

He said this must not be encouraged because every citizen with a sound mind who had attained the voting age was entitled to contest an election without any hindrance.