Ghana: Election of DCEs, a must

At 57 as a republic – the real independence status at which we ceased to be ruled from Britain – Ghana has reason to be somehow proud that it has been able to hold itself together and made some modest achievements in socioeconomic development. But we are still very far away from our potential. The people know it, and they expect a lot more. Our development aiders know it, and they expect us to do far better with the assistance we get from them. But we have saddled ourselves with a self-defeating constitutional testament that has become a serious institutional and developmental drawback.

The nonelection of DCEs makes our local government system a mockery. President Kufour’s government promised to get DCEs universally elected in their districts, but soon changed his mind when he tasted the juicy power of controlling and manipulating local will and decision through DCEs. Late President Atta-Mills would have surely done it, as he put concrete processes in place via the constitutional review exercise. Unfortunately that honest and purposeful man left us too soon. As for President John Mahama, the least said about him the better. In askance he abandoned the Atta-Mills policy and did not seem to bother about how his DCEs worked, and so many of them let him down in the management of the districts, contributing to his loss of power in the 2016 presidential election. 

President Akufo-Addo made this DCE-election policy his key campaign promise, and he has not ceased re-echoing it. But already, we are hearing that some government and party officials are developing cold feet towards the policy. They are so selfishly in fear of the consequent loss of the power and influence they have on spending decisions including contract awards in the districts. The tradition has been that some key ministries including gender and women, agriculture and local government take some spending decisions on behalf of the districts and force them on same. And because the DCEs are appointed by government and so vulnerable to dismissal, no matter how unreasonable, they dare not challenge such abuse by sector ministries. So district common fund allocations and even locally generated funds are drawn on for political expenditure at the expense of development programmes that could better the lot of the people. Expenses made for the districts are generally overinflated, robbing them of funds for the real needs of the people.

One has some faith in Akufo-Addo’s credibility; but one is also fearful of the frustrating excuse being advocated that election of DCEs must necessarily be on partisan basis – necessitating an amendment of an entrenched provision in the 1992 Constitution. This provision, Article 248, currently debars candidates in party name or associated with political party from standing for an assembly member including DCE. This provision, in my view, still makes sense to avoid unnecessary partisan political struggle and mudslinging at the local government level. The framers of the constitution considered the district assembly as primarily a mechanism for development rather than partisan political competition. As such, it makes abundant sense to retain Article 248 and rather amend Articles 242 and 243 which are not entrenched and therefore require no referendum for their amendment.

Confining the amendments to only Articles 242 and 243 should make it easier and speedier to get DCEs universally elected and bring some genuineness of decentralisation to local governance in the country. In this connection one is persuaded to reject Dr Emmanuel Akwetei’s advocacy for amendment of Article 248.

Once DCEs are now electable, the position and term of office will be seen to be secure and so attract better quality personnel with development commitment from the districts. The current fake decentralisation where the president appoints a person nominated by a few partisan officials is not only a slap in the face of local government but also makes a mockery of such governance mechanism.

Ketiboa Blay is a socioeconomic development management specialist with outstanding expertise in baseline research; community needs assessment, community development planning; and projects, programmes and policy technical review and evaluation. He has considerable expertise also in conflict management. As a non-denominational Christian evangelist, Mr Blay is also a peace-builder.