Changes Needed in District Assembly System -Afari

Dr. K. Afari-Gyan Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana has asked for a critical review of Ghana's local government system. He argued that such an appraisal will create the opportunity for the needed changes to be made to strengthen local government structures. Dr. Afari-Gyan made these assertions while delivering the keynote address at a roundtable discussion in Accra yesterday. The theme for the discourse was "The Legal and Institutional Framework for District Level Elections," and was organised under the auspices of Kab Governance Consult an Accra based public policy think which focuses primarily on governance issues.

Dr. Afari Gyan cautioned however that in any critique of Ghana's local government system care ought to exercised to forestall the oversimplification of the issues. He referred to three aspects of the local government which he felt needed change as a matter of urgency. Firstly he suggested that the criteria for demarcating the boundaries of electoral areas and units which at the moment is based on population quotas be replaced with "a sense of community" because of the perennial problem of population increases and "disputes over district boundaries and the jurisdictions of chiefs." On the appointment of the District Chief Executive(DCE) by the president Dr. Afari-Gyan wondered whether the DCE's position was not rendered redundant given the veto powers of the Regional Co-ordinating Council with respect to development plans. Dr. Afari -Gyan opined that the vexing issue of whether or not the District Assembly Elections should be partisan is not a "matter of simple logic" and therefore must be handled with extreme care taking into cognisance issues such as funding and "whether the functions of the district assemblies and unit committees will be better performed with or without political party involvement."

The deputy minister of Local Government the Hon. Capt. Nkrabea Effah-Dartey in his submissions was optimistic that with the appropriate organisational and legal fine tuning of the Ghana's local governance system the nation's transformation will be amply speeded. The roundtable drew discussants form academia, civil society groups, political parties among others. The chairperson was Ms. Esther Ofei Aboagye, a senior consultant of Kab Consult.