MMDCEs don’t visit communities regularly – UG survey says

Data from a study conducted by the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana have shown that metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) do not frequently visit their communities.

When they do, it is done once in a while, quite contrary to their responsibility to engage the people through regular visits to the localities to ascertain for themselves pertinent issues that needed their attention and action.

“Data from the field show that MMDCEs do not frequently visit their communities to obtain first-hand information and attend to welfare matters/concerns

“They mostly (51.4 per cent) visit once in a while, but nearly two of every five of them (39.0 per cent ) indicated that their MMDCEs have never come to their communities at all. Only 2.0 per cent visit weekly, 1.8 per cent bi-weekly and 5.8 per cent monthly,” the research, titled: “Popular opinion on performance of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives”, said.

In all, 27,500 respondents were sampled from the 16 regions in the two-year nationwide survey done between 2017 and 2019.

NALAG’s reaction

But, responding to the issue of visits to the communities, the National Association of Local Authorities of Ghana (NALAG) said the MMDCEs could not be blamed entirely, in view of the work they did at the assemblies.

The General Secretary of NALAG, Mr Kokro Amankwah, said, for instance, that MMDCEs performed administrative and political functions and it would, therefore, be good for them to be in the communities often to interact with the people.

“But at the same time they need to be in their offices to work because when coordinating directors, planning officers and engineers bring documents, MMDCEs have to scrutinise them to give authorisation or approve of them. So the work of the chief executives is 24/7,” he said.

He said although MMDCEs could not be in the communities every day, that did not mean that they should not visit their communities.

“I think most of the time they have their itinerary, where they have to go to the communities and discuss issues of development, especially where there is a medium-term development plan,” he said.

Mr Amankwah said people tended to accuse MMDCEs of not visiting them, forgetting that if the latter did that every day, they would not be able to do the work expected of them.

“Most of the time, our MMDCEs are invited to programmes by state agencies in an uncoordinated manner. Today, Agriculture will call and then Education and Local Government, inviting them for issues concerning their communities.

“So you see them moving up and down; the fact that they are not seen in the communities does not mean they are not working. Some of them have to send reports,” he said, and called for coordinated programmes at the inter-ministerial level, otherwise MMDCEs would be faced with uncoordinated programmes.

Assembly members, he said, were crucial in drawing chief executives’ attention to the concerns of people in their electoral areas.

“I think it is a joy for MMDCEs to visit their communities because the more you do that, the more you have first-hand information on the people,” Mr Amankwah said.  

Basis

Presenting the research findings, a member of the research team, Mr Kaakyire Frempong, said most scholarly reviews of the efficacy of the decentralisation policy in the country had focused on MMDAs, to the neglect of the activities of MMDCEs, who were the chief operating officers of grass-roots institutions.

“It is against this background that this study sought to focus on MMDCEs in order to establish the degree of their impact on the decentralisation process. It assesses, from the perspective of citizens, the extent to which  MMDCEs have performed their functions,” he explained.

Mr Frempong said citizens tended to have a better appreciation of their leaders, whether national or local, if the citizens had a clear understanding and knowledge of the processes by which the leaders were chosen for their positions.

Data

Data from the field, he said, showed a split in popular knowledge of how MMDCEs were appointed.

Only a little over half of the respondents, 13,894 (50.5 per cent), he said, claimed they knew the appointment process of MMDCEs, while 49.5  per cent (13,606) did not.

“The 49.5 per cent who indicated lack of knowledge of the appointment process of their MMDCEs suggests that a large number of the electorate are either apathetic to the workings of the MMDAs or that the process is shrouded in secrecy. It further shows that assembly members who vote on the President’s nominee have failed to engage or educate their constituents about the process,” he said.

Development projects

In terms of development projects, the research showed that MMDCEs were unimpressive.

“Almost half of the responses denounced their MMDCEs for their inability to bring development to their localities. The phrase: ‘the MMDCE has done nothing’ (47.5 per cent) sums up the non-delivery of development projects by MMDCEs,” he said.

 “15.5 per cent of those who responded did not know of the development projects MMDCEs have undertaken in their localities. It is the case that critical social infrastructure, such as markets (4.3 per cent), roads (6.5 per cent) and schools (10.1 per cent) have received little attention,” Mr Frempong added.

He said conventional wisdom taught that the performance of appointees would reflect on the appointing authority.

“However, to the question whether the performance of  MMDCEs will affect the people’s choices in the 2020 presidential poll, a little over half (51.0 per cent) said they would not link their choice to the failure of MMDCEs.

“But that should not give much comfort to the ruling party, given that a significant minority (39.9 per cent) will use the performance of MMDCEs as proxy for the achievement of the President in the locality. In addition, 9.1 per cent were undecided on the issue,” he said.

MMDCEs and MPs

On the issue of the prevalence of tension between MMDCEs and their MPs, he said only 8.0 per cent affirmed that there was tension, while 51.4 per cent refuted its existence.

“However, this does not negate the possibility of tension between the two political heavyweights, since a large proportion (40.6 per cent) indicated they did not know.

“For those who knew of tension between the two, the main source was non-consultation (54.2 per cent), followed by competition for the public space (18.8 per cent), hide-and-seek business and the avoidance of meetings (16.9 per cent) and open confrontation (10.1 per cent),” Mr Frempong said.