LOCAL GOVERNMENT – LET MY VOTE COUNT
Strengthen local democracy and accountability through the election of district chief executives (DCEs). This shouldn’t incur any big additional cost, as organisation of such elections could be added to that of the assembly members election (and held on same day, as done for the presidential and parliamentary elections). Although, I have been a strong advocate of the partisan kind of electing DCEs, I am now a bit agnostic. Partisan or nonpartisan shouldn’t be a deal breaker albeit the argument for a partisan one is convincing i.e.
– assembly member election is nonpartisan on paper, but we all know the political affiliations of assembly members. Political parties glaringly campaign for their candidates during such elections. Even in the assembly chambers members are known by their party affiliations and they tend to oppose DCE nominees not supported by their parties. I have been an ex officio member of a district assembly (Asante Mampong Municipal, Sekyere West at the time) representing the National Youth Council. I was doing my post sixth form national service and was acting as the district coordinator, courtesy of my boss, Amankwa Frimpong, who was mostly away in Kumasi. At the time an overwhelming majority of assembly members were affiliated to the NPP (Mampong is an NPP stronghold) and the approval of the DCE was Sisyphean.
– partisan elections will allow smaller parties that can’t compete at the national have a fair chance at the local level. This kills the ‘winner takes all’ epidemic and allows smaller parties that win at the local level to build their brand and reputation for the national level. It diversifies leadership and governance thinking, provides a platform for testing of different kinds of development agendas/programmes and brings genuine competition to governance.
– provides grounds for grooming and training future national leaders in the art and act of leadership. Serve successfully at the local level as a DCE and you can use it as an effective reference for higher level national positions.
– political parties will ensure that they have competent people as candidates for DCE positions and that such people perform well, as any poor and incompetent administration will not inure to their benefit at the national level.
All said, whilst election of DCEs is necessary, it’s not sufficient in itself. It has to come with a new framework for local government that includes: funding and revenue allocation formula; decentralisation of core government functions/offices/structures; accountability, scrutiny and oversight structures including periodic assessments/inspections of performance and standards.
DIRT, STENCH GO AWAY – WE WANNA BREATHE AGAIN
Accra is filthy, Kumasi is filthy, Takoradi is filthy and I hear the once beautiful Sunyani is also filthy. This is a major public health issue. Why do we have weeds, that can compete with Dodowa Forest, in the middle of major roads and pavements? One wonders what these metropolitan executives do. Buzzstop boys, a group of young men and women who have taken it upon themselves to clean Accra are doing great work. They need to be supported. A suggestion is for Buzzstop boys to turn their organisation into a social enterprise and be given sanitation contracts by metropolitan and district assemblies. They will be able to get more young people on board, purchase the right equipments and pay themselves well. They deserve it. Others would be enticed to go into such businesses and create healthy competition and breathing environment for all who dare to breathe. The ministries of health, local government, environment, and tourism would have to pull up their braces and solve this very ugly problem.