26 confirmed Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the Greater Accra Region have been sworn into office by the Regional Minister, Henry Quartey.
The remaining three, Mordecai Quarshie of Ledzokuku, Mohammed Bashiru Kamara of Ga Central and Latif Amanor Ningo Prampram could not secure the required number of votes from their Assembly Members to be confirmed as Municipal Chief Executives.
Head of Local Government Service, Dr. Nana Ato Arthur announced plans by his outfit to organize some academic courses for key staff of the assemblies to enhance service delivery at the local level.
“I want to assure you that, your staff will be trained as soon as possible particularly Regional Coordinating Directors, engineers, and procurement officers on contract management, public financial management, etc. The rationale behind this is to help bring on board the best management practices in achieving the objectives of the service. I wish to express my confidence in you and the expertise you are seeking to bring to bear.”
The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources who doubles as the Caretaker Minister for Gender Children and Social Protection, Cecilia Abena Dapaah called on the newly confirmed MMDCEs to deal with streetism and sanitation to ensure a safe society.
“One major problem is the street children we see around. They are everywhere, and they are a danger to all of us and society. I hope you find ways and means to deal with that issue properly.”
Communication and Digitalization Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful also urged the MMDCEs use digital platforms in collecting property rates and other services to enhance revenue mobilization.
Rejected nominees
In the case of the Ledzokuku MCE nominee, out of the 18 votes cast on Wednesday, October 6, 2021, Mr. Quashie secured only 8 YES votes, while 9 assembly members voted NO. There was one rejected ballot.
Some residents of Ledzokuku had earlier called on the president to change the nominee, claiming he wasn’t from Teshie.
A group calling itself the concerned youth of Teshie said they preferred a nominee who is an indigene.
They were worried that the nominee will be unable to relate with people in the community.
“We just want an indigene and a person who can speak and understand Ga because we live in a fishing community in which most of our people don’t understand English well or any other language apart from Ga.”
“He doesn’t know anything about Teshie. We are having a lot of issues in Teshie; like chieftaincy issues and boundary issues,” one aggrieved resident said.
Meanwhile, chaos ensued during the election of Mr. Mohammed Bashiru, as MCE for the Ga Central Municipal Assembly.
This was after officials of the Electoral Commission were stopped by some party executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the process of counting the results after voting.
In the course of the counting, 11 out of the 20 assembly members had voted to reject the nominee and this appeared to be too big a blow for some of the members who tried to snatch the results from the hands of EC officials, leading to an abrupt end of the process.
