Why postpone election of MMDCEs to 2021?

The issue of election of municipal, metropolitan and district chief executives (MMDCEs) is in the public space once again.

As usual we are hearing various arguments for and against the election of MMDCEs being bandied in the public space.

We have also heard recently the announcement by the Local Government and Rural Development Minister (LGRD), Hajia Alima Mahama, saying that the election of MMDCEs will come off in 2021.

In fact the minister’s announcement is what has stoked the current debate with many well-meaning Ghanaians questioning why the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) will postpone the date to 2021, when it is boldly stated in their 2016 Manifesto that the party will elect MMDCEs twenty-four (24) months into their administration when given the mandate to govern this country.

Going by their 2016 Manifesto, it, therefore, tends to suggest that the implementation of the election of MMDCEs should take effect in the year 2019. But from what we are being told that will not come to fruition.

So what has changed that the Akufo-Addo administration is telling Ghanaians that they will implement that policy not even in 2020 but in 2021?

This is where Weekend Today fully supports the call by the Chairman of the National Committee of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, for the election of MMDCEs to take place now and not the proposed 2021.

Dr. Nduom made the call while addressing a press conference in Accra last Wednesday. And in his estimation, the speedy development of Ghana cannot be delinked from the election of MMDCEs.

Indeed what is stalling the immediate implementation of electing our MMDCEs directly by the people is something that continues to baffle us.

Why do we want to still hang on to a kind of system where MMDCEs will work only to please one person—the president—and not his/her constituents? This system as we have seen does not make our MMDCEs directly accountable to the people they work for.

Therefore, Weekend Today wants to use this opportunity to call on the Akufo-Addo administration to reconsider this new date for the implementation of the election of MMDCEs.

In our estimation, the election of MMDCEs is a matter that ought to be treated with a sense of urgency by the current administration, especially when they promised in their 2016 Manifesto to execute when given the power to rule this country.

We want to state that 2021 is too far and would therefore urge the government to work towards the 2016 Manifesto date, which is 2019.