General News of Tuesday, 26 November 2019

Source: ghananewsagency.org

Vote yes in referendum to end protests against nomination of MMDCEs

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Mr. Thomas Yaw Adjei Baffoe, the Deputy Central Regional Minister, has urged Ghanaians to vote overwhelmingly ‘YES' in December 17 referendum, to allow for the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives
(MMDCEs).

This, he said, would end the lobbying, misunderstanding and protests that sometimes greet the nomination of people to MMDCE positions by the President.

The appointment of MMDCEs, many a time, is met by demonstrations, acrimony, division and chaos.

Mr. Adjei Baffoe said the way to stop that was to make the MMDCE position elective.

He was speaking at a meet-the-press event organized by the Agona East District Assembly at Nsaba, to tell the success story of the government.

The programme was attended by chiefs, heads of department, market women, dressmakers, hairdressers, artisans, youth groups, community-based organizations and others.

The Deputy Minister noted that if the MMDCEs were democratically elected by the people they would become accountable to them and strive to meet their development aspirations.

He encouraged everybody to go out to vote in the referendum and the District Level Election (DLE) to deepen the country’s democratic governance.

He called for the National Commission for Civic Education, the media, chiefs, civil society organizations, and youth groups to intensify the education campaign to help everybody to have better understanding of the exercise.

Mr. Dennis Armah-Frempong, District Chief Executive (DCE), said a lot of had been achieved, less than three years into the Akufo-Addo led administration.

A total of 220 development projects - schools, health, roads and boreholes had been completed in the area.

Additionally, 8,000 farmers had benefited from the government’s flagship planting for food and jobs (PFJ) programme in the district.

He said 20,000 coconut seedlings had also been distributed to farmers under the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) programme.

They had paid contractors working on projects started by the previous administration to complete those projects.