Paul Nana Kwabena Aborampah Mensah, the Prommmes Manager, CDD-Ghana, has raised concerns over the fixation of Ghanaians on the 2024 general election when the country has an impending District Level Elections (DLE) this year.

He said the general apathy in the DLE among citizens was a “sickness that must be cured” to help strengthen the base of the governance structure, which served as the foundation of Ghana’s development.

Speaking at a national dialogue on the 2023 DLE in Kumasi, Aborampah said local governance remained the most potent way to bring development to the citizenry, hence reducing apathy must be a priority.

The dialogue was organised by the Local Governance Network (LOGNet), Public Financial Management Network (PFM-Network), and the Chamber of Local Governance (CHaloG), with support from the German Development Cooperation (GIZ).

It was to provide a platform to educate, sensitize and raise awareness among citizens, non-state actors, and state actors on the 2023 DLE.

Participants from the Ashanti, Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, and Western North regions attended the event, on the theme: “Strategies to Improve Participation towards the District Level Elections in Ghana.”

Aborampah bemoaned the lack of interest in the upcoming local elections by key stakeholders including the Executive, Parliament, media, civil society organizations, and traditional leaders despite its importance to national development.

He particularly entreated traditional leaders to take a keen interest in the DLE as custodians of lands on which development projects were executed, reminding them of their crucial roles in local governance.

“Chiefs have been part of the local governance process since the era of the colonial masters who implemented their policies through traditional leaders so they must be concerned…” he said.

Simon Manu, the Regional Coordinator of GIZ, said Germany recognised local assembly as the most important unit of its governance system.

He said the GIZ was supporting efforts to raise awareness about the DLE because Germany believed in strengthening local structures as the fulcrum of development.

“Development in Ghana hinged on the local governance system…If local governance fail, development in Ghana will fail,” he said.

The situation where Ghanaians blamed the President for lack of development at the local level was unacceptable because the assemblies were there for that purpose, and stressed the need for stakeholders to join efforts to strengthen decentralisation.

Christopher Dapaah, National Coordinator of LOGNet, said turnouts in the DLEs in Ghana continued to decline from 59.3 percent in 1988/89 to 33.6 percent in 2019 as against an average of 78.8 percent in the Parliamentary and Presidential elections since 1992.

“It is clear from data that there is a huge gap in participation when comparing district-level elections and national elections,” he observed.

He said even though Ghana was a solid democratic nation, the narration would have been different if the nation’s democracy were to be rated based on participation in DLEs.

Benjamin Bannor Bio, the Regional Director of the Electoral Commission, took participants through processes and strategies towards the election.