Koforidua, Nov. 21, GNA - Emoluments for district assembly members; reviewing the composition the assemblies and the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) dominated the Eastern Regional Consultative Forum on the acceleration of the decentralization process.

The Majority of the participants including seasoned politicians and technocrats called for incentives for assembly members to make them effective and relevant to the decentralization process. The participants recommended that the appointment of the MMDCEs should be maintained because electing them would be harmful to the decentralization process more so if the elected Chief Executive belonged to a party other than the one in control of the Central Government.

Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, Eastern Regional Minister, said after 20 years of the decentralization experiment, assembly members must be given a package in the forum of ex-gratia to make them more committed to the process. For him the current state where assembly members unlike their counterparts in Parliament were given only sitting allowance and transportation was a disincentive and if not critically looked at could collapse that important component of the Assembly Concept. Another area that the Regional Minister said needed attention was redefining the role of the Regional Coordinating Council's (RCC's) in the context of monitoring and coordinating activities of the Assemblies. He said the RCCs have to be empowered financially to intervene promptly on issues such as disasters and emergencies since by the current arrangement assemblies were unable to respond quickly to such events. Mr Fred Asante, an Assembly Member and a Former Council of State Member, noted that the unit committees, which were the arm of the assembly, were not functioning because its membership was too large to control or coordinate. He mentioned the area and town councils that also needed to be redefined into smaller units explaining that if those two substructures were strengthened the decentralization concept for better governance would be attained.

Mr Kwame Apea, Eastern Regional Secretary of the Convention Peoples' Party (CPP) endorsed the appointment of the MMDCEs with an explanation that with the problems associated with elections, where it was the rich and affluent in society who won, it would be dangerous to the political administration.

Mr Yaw Ampofo-Duodu, Former Presiding Member, also supported the appointment of MMDCEs but called for a review of the current arrangement where presiding members were elected by two-thirds into a simple majority to speed up the election process. He said the trend where election of PMs took more than a year because of failure to attain the two-thirds was a dent on the system and also called for the strengthening of the consultation process of the traditional authorities on the Government appointees to the various assemblies. Nana Ansah Sasraku, Mamfehene and Akuapem Kyidomhene, called for a policy in the decentralization system that appointments to the district assemblies must be based on competence and technical know-how to facilitate rapid national development. Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yileh Chireh explained that the essence of the forum was to solicit the ideas of the cross- section of Ghanaians to be infused into the review of the decentralization system to reflect the local participation character of the decentralization concept. He noted that issues that became outstanding would be referred to the Constitutional Review Committee for consideration and explained that the forums were to give all stakeholders and Ghanaians the opportunity to contribute to the consolidation of democracy. 21 Nov. 09