Akufo-Addo breaks silence on appointments of MMDCES

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President of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo has revealed that the betrayal of his party to pull out its initial support for the election Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) is the cause of the delay in releasing the list.

He says it is for that reason there is a delay in the appointment of MMDCEs to the various Assemblies across the country.

However, he disclosed on Tamale-based Justice FM that he and his team are working at reaching a consensus with regards to the appointment eight months after he started his second term.

“It’s been quite an exhaustive process and we are trying to make sure as much as possible we arrive at some consensus about them.”

The President indicated that his original wish for the selection of MMDCEs was to vote them into power and not make it the sole preserve of the elected President but that could not be.

“As you know my original wish has been that MMDCE will no longer be the patronage of the President and will not be appointed by the President but elected by the people. I thought that it’s time in our history that we took multi party politics to local government just as we elect MPs, elect the President at the local level too let us elect our MMDCEs but unfortunately the party opposite after initially agreeing later pulled out of that understanding.

I took a view at the time that this is not an issue we should deal with at NDC and NPP basis. Like the same thing with the regions, the creation of the regions. We needed a development of an amendment of our constitution that will have broad National Consensus so when the major opposition party decided to pull out of the agreement for the establishment of the democratic participation in the election of MMDCEs, I felt that we shouldn’t continue the exercise. Let us hope that a time will come when that consensus will allow us to do so.”

The President indicated that with this in mind, there is the need for a broad consultative process in the selection of persons to the various Assemblies across the country adding that he is currently going through the reports presented to him but the various committees set up for the selection process and that with time, the list will be ready.