Mr. Paul Nana Kwabena Aborampah Mensah, Prommmes Manager, CDD-Ghana, has raised concerns about the fixation of Ghanaians on the 2024 general election when the country has an impending District Level Elections (DLE) this year.
He said the general apathy in the DLE among citizens was a sickness that must be cured to strengthen the base of the governance structure, which served as the foundation of Ghana’s development.
Speaking at a national dialogue on the 2023 District Level Election in Kumasi, Mr. Aborampah said local governance remained the most potent way to bring development to the citizenry, hence reducing apathy on the part of stakeholders must be a priority.
The dialogue was put together by the Local Governance Network (LOGNet), Public Financial Management Network (PFM-Network), and the Chamber of Local Governance (CHaloG), with support from the German Development Cooperation (GIZ).
The goal was to provide a platform to educate, sensitise and raise awareness among citizens, non-state actors and state actors on the 2023 DLE.
Participants from Ashanti, Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, and Western North attended the event which was held on the theme: “Strategies to Improve Participation towards the District Level Elections in Ghana.”
The Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, Mr. Benjamin Bannor Bio, was on hand to take participants through processes and strategies towards the 2023 DLE.
Mr. Aborampah bemoaned the lack of interest in the upcoming local elections by key stakeholders such as the executive, parliament, media, civil society organisations, and traditional leaders despite its importance to national development.
He entreated traditional leaders to take keen interest in the DLE as custodians of lands on which development projects were executed, reminding them of their crucial roles in local governance.
“Chiefs have been part of the local governance process since the era of the colonial masters who implemented their policies through traditional leaders so they must be concerned with the apathy towards local elections,” he pointed out.
He implored chiefs to appreciate the value of local governance as key stakeholders in development at the local level.
Mr. Simon Manu, the Regional Coordinator of GIZ, said Germany recognised local assembly as the most important unit of its governance system.
He said GIZ was supporting efforts to raise awareness about the DLE because Germany believed in strengthening local structures as the fulcrum of development.
According to him, development in Ghana hinged on the local governance system, adding that, “If local governance fails, development in Ghana will fail.”
The situation where Ghanaians blame the President for lack of development at the local level, he noted, was unacceptable because the assemblies were there for that purpose, and stressed the need for stakeholders join efforts to strengthen decentralisation.
Mr. Christopher Dapaah, National Coordinator of LOGNet, said turnouts in the DLEs in Ghana continued to decline from 59.3 per cent in 1988/89 to 33.6 per cent in 2019 as against an average of 78.8 per cent in the Parliamentary and Presidential elections since 1992.
“It is clear from data that there is a huge gap in participation when comparing district-level elections and national elections,” he observed.
He said even though Ghana was a solid democratic nation, the narration would have been different if the nation’s democracy were to be rated based on participation in DLEs.
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