The flagbearer of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom is calling on Ghanaians to resist what he says are the attempts by President J.E.A. Mills to usurp the power of the people.
According to Dr. Nduom, the decision by the government to reject the recommendations by the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) to base the positions of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDEs) on universal adult suffrage, is unacceptable and an affront to the will of Ghanaians.
He said “the position of the Mills-led NDC Administration is self-serving, myopic, unproductive and against the interest of the people.”
In a press statement released on Tuesday and copied to RadioXYZonline.com, Dr. Nduom said despite the promises made by the current administration to reverse the trend where such MMDCEs are appointed by the government prior to the 2008 elections, he is “disappointed at the turn of events as the White Paper issued by the Mills Administration retains the essential wrong embedded in the 1992 Constitution that we were seeking to correct – the nomination of the candidate for the position of MMDCE by the President of the Republic of Ghana.”
The Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), recommended in its report that article 243(1) be amended to make the position of DCEs elective through general elections as pertains at the Presidential and Parliamentary levels.
But the Mills-led administration has in a White paper proposed different amendment of article 243 (1) to have the President nominate a minimum of five persons who would be vetted by the Public Services Commission for competence compliance after which the first three would compete in a public election.
Dr. Nduom vehemently disagrees with government’s position saying, “Ghanaians must be given the right to elect their MMDEs without any interference from the President.”
According to him, “it is the elected members of the Assembly who are called upon by the people to deal with the problems that confront them, not the appointed ones and certainly not the appointed MMDCE because they do not listen to them.”
He asserts that the only way to accelerate development at the “local level is to make the political authority at the Assembly level responsive to the people at the level and not to the president who resides in Accra.”**
