Citizens urged to massively vote Yes on referendum day

Hajia Alima Mahama, the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, has called the public to come out massively to vote in favour of District Level Elections in the upcoming referendum.

She said voting which was slated for December 17, would help enhance and strengthen the decentralization process of governance in the country.

She urged citizens to massively vote "YES", for political parties to participate in the election of MMDCEs in their various constituencies to help strengthen democracy in the country”.

Hajia Mahama, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Nalerigu -Gambaga Constituency, said this on Wednesday when she interacted with community members in the West Mamprusi Municipal in North East Region on the upcoming 17th December referendum.

This formed part of her tour to the Region, organized in collaboration with UNICEF, with the aim of assessing the sanitation situation as well as come out with modalities on how to effectively improve on the sanitation situation.

Hajia Mahama said come December, 2019 the Electoral Commission (EC) would conduct the district level elections and this would require citizens to vote for their Unit Committee Chairs, their Assembly members as well as Vote "Yes" or "No" to support or not to support, the participation of political parties in the election of MMDCEs.

She said 40 per cent out of the total registered voters must turn out to vote, and out of the 40 per cent, 75 per cent must vote in favour of the referendum to enable political parties participate fully in the District Level Elections.

Hajia Mahama said the active participation of citizens in the referendum would enable Parliament to amend the sections in the constitution that gives the President ultimate power to appoint MMDCEs”.

She said the MMDCEs have closer functional relationship with the people and, therefore, citizens must be given the chance to elect their MMDCEs.

She urged the residents to help share the information and encourage everyone to come out and vote massively during the referendum.

Hajia Mahama, speaking on Sanitation, advised the citizens to help stop open defecation by making sure they had toilet facilities in their homes, and challenged the assemblies to enforce by-laws on prosecuting households that refuse to put up toilet facilities.

Mr Abu Mohammed, Municipal Chief Executive for the West Mamprusi Municipal, commended both the Local government Minister and UNICEF for their contributions towards improving on sanitation in the country.

He said through their efforts, the Municipality has improved from the 24th position to 8th position on the Regional Open Defecation Free (ODF) League Table and gave the assurance that more efforts would be made to improve on the sanitation situation.