With the suspension of the District Assembly Elections, a local government expert has argued that Ghana’s decentralisation policy was in danger, saying that the crisis was politically motivated and a betrayal of the norms and values of the decentralisation concept.
A former Presiding Member of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Nana Kofi Senya, thinks the dissolution of the local representatives of the people was a deliberate attempt by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to take over the roles of the constitutionally mandated assembly members in the country.
Referring to Article 245 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, he noted that MMDAs were enjoined to be responsible for levying and collection of taxes, rates, duties and other fess. Assembly members, he continued, are therefore elected to the various MMDAs to represent their electorate with a view to approve fee fixing resolutions, budgets, by laws and action plans and liaise between the electorate and the local government ministry.
However, it has been realised that with the dissolution of the assemblies, government intends usurping the constitutional responsibilities of the elected Assembly members, with allegations of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, especially plotting to hand over public toilets in the metropolis, to party foot soldiers.
Nana Senya made these assertions in a release issued to the media in Kumasi last week.
“A visit to the MMDAs and their sub-metros, one will witness a sight of the MMDCEs, their party executives and of course party foot soldiers which are now planning and implementing programmes and strategies to add up to their fortunes for the upcoming general elections,” Nana Senya alleged.
He continued that ‘the plot to hand over toilets in the metropolis over to the party loyalists should be discarded in its entirety.”
It would be recalled that the Supreme Court stopped the running of the District Assembly elections which should have come off in March this year, after an aggrieved aspirant petitioned the court that he had been unfairly treated, praying it to call off the elections.
This brought about a lot of hue and cry from various angles in the country. And while some of the aspirants lamented about how much time, efforts and resources they had invested into the botched elections, social commentators were also concerned about how much financial loss the Electoral Commission had caused the nation.
In all these, the former presiding member of KMA was of the opinion that by the constitution of Ghana, government could have extended their mandate to enhance the decentralisation concept Ghanaians have been passionately talking about.
“In Article 113 clauses 1 and 2 of the 1992 Constitution, it states that ‘Subject to Clause 2 of this Article, Parliament shall continue for four years from the date of its first sitting and shall then stand dissolved,” and (2) At any time when Ghana is actually engaged in war, Parliament may, from time to time by the resolution by the votes of not less than Two-thirds of all Members of Parliament extend the period of four years specified in clause 1 to not more than twelve months at a time expect that the life of Parliament shall not be extended under this clause for more than four years,” he pointed.
By this, he stated that same could have been done in the case of MMDAs if the NDC government really wanted to enhance the nation’s decentralisation concept which has been so politicised.
He said per section 19 sub-section Clause 2 of the Local Government Act, the Executive Committee of the assembly which is dominated by Assembly members had by law, been mandated to perform certain functions at the assemblies but now the MMDCEs appointed by the president were performing those functions, and, without the larger participation of the people. Hon. Nana Senya was of the opinion that the deputy minister of local government who effected the dissolution of the MMDAs could have collaborated with Parliament after the ruling of the Supreme Court suspending the District Assembly level elections, and a better decision could have been arrived than what the nation has now.
Calling for a vibrant participation in governance from civil society, the former presiding member thought that politicians had taken Ghanaians for a ride for far too long and it was high time Ghanaians rose up and asked meaningful questions of government.
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