Aspiring women MPs and assembly women attend workshop

A gender activist, Mrs Boadicea Ama Prempeh, has encouraged Ghanaian women to get more actively involved in politics by contesting for elective positions.

It is by so doing that they would be able to influence policies affecting their development and that of children, she said.

Mrs Prempeh was speaking at the opening of a three-day workshop organized by the Environmental Protection Association of Ghana (EPAG) for some women aspiring to become Members’ of Parliament (MPs) and serving assembly women.

The goal is to help build their capacities and to adequately equip them for the task ahead.

Mrs Prempeh described their present representation in the political administration as inadequate. They constitute about 8.3 per cent of the 230 member parliament.

Out of the 230 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (DCEs) only three, representing 1.3 per cent, are women.

The picture is not any different with cabinet ministerial appointments as there are just three of them among the 19 ministers.

She said it was time the trend changed to give women some leverage in political decision making.

Mrs Diana Osei Asibey, Manhyia District Officer of the Electoral Commission (EC), used the occasion to take them through the Biometric Voters’ Registration and urged them to encourage all qualified voters to register.

Mr John Kwadwo Owusu, Executive Director of the EPAG, commended the African Women Development Fund (AWDF) for sponsoring the workshop and said he was confident that the participants would employ the skills acquired in their electioneering campaigns. **