Accra needs a non-Ga Mayor to make it work – CPP Dep Chair

It’s time for Accra to have a non-indigenous Mayor, the second Vice Chairperson of the Convention People's Party (CPP) has suggested on Radio XYZ’s news analysis programme The Analyst.

In Rhodaline Imoro-Ayana’s view, a non-Ga Mayor of the capital city would easily overcome many of the challenges facing current Mayor Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, which his predecessors also grappled with.

She said ethnic pressure from traditional and opinion leaders in the Ga Community is a major hindrance to the Mayor’s effectiveness.

Imoro-Ayana’s observation and suggestion come on the heels of a recent collapse of a seven-storey hotel at Nii Boi Town in the capital.

One person died and another got severely injured. The two masons were lodging in the uncompleted illegal structure when it caved in on them on Thursday dawn.

Three building inspectors and the owner of the property have been arrested and are being investigated over the disaster. There have been several calls on the Mayor to resign over the disaster, but he has shifted blame to his subordinates.

This is the second major disaster of such nature in less than two years. In 2012, a six-storey department store belonging to Melcom collapsed in like manner, killing 14 people and injuring more than 70 others.

The Mayor and his team promised to enforce the by-laws to strictly ensure such a disaster never happens again. But Imoro-Ayana is of the conviction that the Mayor’s failure to avert the crisis coupled with the sanitation problem in the City can be put down to ethnic pressures from his Ga kinsmen.

She argues that the cosmopolitan nature of Accra makes it imperative for a non-native to be made Mayor for efficiency and competency.