The Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) is demanding immediate constitutional reforms to ensure the practice of appointing Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives is abolished.
According to the founder of the party, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, the incoming Akufo Addo- led government must ensure that the policy of rather electing these public officials is implemented within a year of assuming power on January 7, 2017.
The President-elect, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has pledged his commitment for the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the country starting 2018.
He told a gathering of chiefs in the Central region in Cape Coast, Nana Akufo-Addo that the move, will not only deepen the decentralization process but will definitely afford the people the opportunity to select who can best represent their interest as chief executive.
But addressing a press conference in Accra on Thursday, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, a former Member of Parliament and an Assembly man stated that the PPP wishes to rekindle the crusade for immediate and complete constitutional reforms to make the constitution a development oriented document that responds to our present and future challenges.
“We specifically will like to say that the following reforms are undertaken within the next 24 months. Point number 2 which for me is one of the very key ones which change is necessary has to do with election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives and all assembly members, let’s not forget about that one. Article 240 (1) of the constitution states that ‘Ghana shall have a system of local government which shall as far as practicable be decentralized.’ But the same article gives authority to Parliament to enact appropriate laws that will ensure that functions, powers and responsibilities and resources are at all times transfered from the Central government to local government units in a coordinated manner.”
