Referendum On New Regions For 2018

The Minister-designate for Regional Reorganisation and Development, Dan Kwaku Botwe on Monday told the Appointments Committee that President Akufo-Addo will soon put in place a Commission of Enquiry to look at how new regions would be created out of the Western, Brong Ahafo, Northern and Volta Regions.

He said the Commission would do broad consultations with chiefs, opinion leaders, professionals, land demarcation experts, political parties and members of the general public before those regions would be created.

He said after recommendations have been made by the Commission, a referendum would be held on the creation of the new regions.

According to the Minister-designate, it is envisaged that the referendum would be held alongside the district assembly elections in 2018.

Mr. Botwe said creating additional regions would speed up development in those regions and bring jobs to the people apart from making the running of the divided regions easier.

He said a lot of work has been done by some experts in demarcating boundaries in the affected regions, as well as the re-aligning of some paramountcies in those regions.

He indicated that chiefs would now be made to play more developmental roles with regional reorganization agenda of the government.

“We want a more effective administration of the regions and government administrative machinery at the regions development-centred and also make decentralization more meaningful to the citizenry”

He said for instance that three regions could be carved out of the Northern Region because of its sheer size.

He said many people, who had been appointed in the various regimes to be Ministers for the Northern Region, have been lamenting about the size of the region and how difficult it’s to manage it administratively.

He said the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was also in support of the creation of additional five regions when it was in power and so his ministry would liaise with leaders of NDC to know more about their intention to create more regions and how those ideas could help the new ministry achieve its target.

He said his ministry would also work closely with the regions that are to be split to ensure that the set targets are achieved to make administration of the regions much easier to ensure accelerated development.