District Assemblies must be non-partisan

Decentralisation is expected to create a framework for the participation of the people in decision-making and local governance.

In doing so, power, functions and responsibility, together with human and financial resources, are devolved to the district level from the central government.

Although Ghana had had some level of decentralisation predating independence and long after that, a further and probably more decisive step was initiated when the decentralisation policy was initiated by the Provisional National Defence Council under Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings in 1988.

As part of the decentralisation process, the district assemblies were introduced as the political vehicles for bringing governance to the grass roots. So the existing 110 districts at the time went to the polls and elected members to their various assemblies.

As the political and administrative authorities in the districts, the assemblies’ primary function was (and still is) to promote local economic development.

The Local Government Act of 2016[3] also tasks district assemblies to, among other functions, formulate and execute plans, programmes and strategies for the effective mobilisation of the resources necessary for the overall development of the districts.

It is probably for these reasons that the framers of the assembly concept thought it wise to make elections to the assemblies non-partisan to enable assembly members to take decisions solely in the interest of their districts, without any political colouration.

It is also because of the fact that the assemblies are expected to be non-partisan that contestants in the assembly elections are debarred under the law from campaigning on political party platforms. But we see that a number of assembly members are known holders of political office in the districts who have often shown bias in their actions and deliberations in the assemblies.

It is for this reason that the Daily Graphic is wholeheartedly in support of the call on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to suspend assembly members who contest for political party positions.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Assembly Member for the Donkoyianmu/Obra Wogun Electoral Area in the Effutu municipality in the Central Region, Mr Nathaniel Acheampong, drew attention to the unconstitutionality of the practice.

We are aware that in the past, this practice may have been overlooked, resulting in the assemblies accommodating some members who are known political party office holders. It is a fact that every individual has a political opinion, but such opinion should not be exercised along partisan political lines in the assemblies.

We believe that it is time to stop the practice and ensure that the assemblies are run purely along non-partisan lines until such a time that, as a country, we decide that the assembly concept should be partisan. As it stands now, assembly members holding party political office must be made to resign, while those who intend to contest such office must also quit.

It is only this that will ensure the current non-partisan nature of the assembly concept.