Govt blows GHC1million on adverts for botched referendum

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development working through the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) spent a whooping Ghc1 million Ghana Cedis on Adverts to publicize the botched referendum, MyNewsGh.com has learnt.

This was made known by the boss of the NCCE, Mrs Josephine Nkrumah in an interview on Joy News explaining that the whole amount came from the coffers of the Ministry of Local Government.

“We were kindly sponsored by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. We didn’t have direct funding from government of Ghana to carry out the district level elections and referendum on the awareness-raising and education…. We were given a million cedis and as we speak, we’ve dissipated all of those resources and that is not cheap money for NCCE,” a visibly disappointed Madam Nkrumah said in the interview.

She was unhappy that all the work they put in has gone into the drain and that Ghanaians had a chance to change their lives through the referendum.

“You look at all the work you did and you are like wow, so all of this and it’s been called off. I think it was a real opportunity for us as Ghanaians in terms of local governance, in terms of reforms and in terms of where collectively as a people we wanted local governance to go. It’s a golden opportunity that we’ve all missed,” she added.

She mentioned that although the referendum has been cancelled, it has helped create an atmosphere for the average Ghanaian to understand how the local government system works and the need for full participation.

“For NCCE, on the premise that the referendum was riding on the back of district-level elections, we continue to carry out with our work. Perhaps there’s been some good that has come out of this. People are beginning to understand the importance of local governance people are beginning to appreciate that that is where real change can be made,” she said.

She explained that her focus is now on the Assembly elections.

“We have pumped money in into adverts, jingles…on one side we were doing the referendum and on the other side, we were doing the district level elections. So, what it is for us is to curtail education on the referendum and continue to speak about district-level elections,” she said.