<<Print>>

Participants at a two-day validation workshop on the legal and institutional framework for District Level Elections at Koforidua, have advocated improvement in the organization of elections in the country. The called for the liberalization of the legislative Instrument that required that the Electoral Commission (EC) should be the sole organizer of campaign platform for candidates contesting elections. The participants contented that this would allow candidates to market themselves well to the electorate and the EC could concentrate its efforts on policies to ensure equity, fairness and peaceful campaigns. This was contained in recommendations of the participants presented to journalists by Dr. Esther Ofei Aboagye, Principal of the Institute of Local Government, at the end of the workshop on Friday. The participants called for the reduction of members of unit committees from 10 to five and the renaming of unit committees as Electoral Area Committees. They recommended that in considering the 30 per cent of the government appointees to the Assemblies, ambiguities in the guiding laws should be removed to make room for representation of Members of Parliament, gender and interest groups. The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yiley Chireh gave the assurance that suggestions that did not border on constitutional review could be considered and adopted before this year's District Assembly elections. He said that government would welcome suggestions aimed at improving on the local government system and announced that the authorities would soon organize stakeholders' forum on decentralization. Dr Cheryl Gopaul of the Canadian International Agency, praised Ghana for taking steps to improve on its electoral process based on lessons of previous District Assembly polls. She said elections formed an important part of the democratic process and gave citizens better access to policy making. The workshop, which was facilitated by KAB Governance Consult, was attended by staff of EC and the Ministry, executives of the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana, and representatives of Institute of Local Government Studies.