Local governance analyst, Fred Oduro Agyarko, has expressed disappointment in the level of apathy displayed by some Ghanaians in the selection of representatives during district assembly elections.

According to him, Ghana’s assembly system is critical to its development, however, for the assembly to effectively function, there must be elected and appointed officials at the assembly level to help with governance processes.

He revealed that although assembly members are elected to represent the areas, Ghanaians have failed to understand first the work of the assemblies, and the work of the assembly members.

“If you have an assembly system that is beset with a number of problems, you realize that the assembly cannot perform the function it has to perform and part of the challenges with our local governance system is to do with even the level of apathy people have towards the selection of the right people to go and represent us at the district level.
“Sometimes, you look at the resources available to some of them, and even sometimes the appreciation of some of the people who are even selected, and as to what is expected of them also leaves a lot to be desired.”
Fred Oduro Agyarko

Mr Agyarko indicated that the selection of individuals to join the local assemblies to provide effective governance at the local level is very crucial to the running of the country.

He noted that Ghana is divided now into 261 metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies and these are the closest level of governance to the people.

In light of this, he stated that the work of district assemblies and their representatives who have specific roles to play in the development of various communities cannot be overemphasized.

That notwithstanding, he underscored that there are challenge that government is “skirting around” with. He expressed that the country does not have an effective system available at the district level to mobilize people to go out and vote during election.

“The other challenge we do have with our local level election is also to do with how we are able to mobilize individuals to go out to vote. If you compare our district level elections to our national elections, you realize that when we have national elections which covers our members of parliament and Presidents, we have an effective vehicle which is the political parties to mobilize people to go out there to vote…
“So, I think there is no effective vehicle for mobilizing [voters] at the local level – that also affects how people will really want to be part of the process in the election.”
Fred Oduro Agyarko

Addressing challenges within district assemblies

Commenting on the importance of local assemblies to national life, the local governance analyst revealed that the assemblies perform at least 25 different functions. This, he stated, covers virtually every aspect of lives from education, health, infrastructure, roads, electricity and everything that concerns citizens.

“From cradle to the grave, the assembly has a role to play… If you look at the construct of our governance system, the provision of infrastructure for primary healthcare is the responsibility of the local assembly… Of course, there are other institutions that provide some of these things, but it is the core mandate of the local assembly.”
Fred Oduro Agyarko

Furthermore, Mr Agyarko noted that despite the vital role the assemblies play in the country, there are myriad of issues surrounding the whole local government system that government must work at to improve.

He stated that these assemblies are given huge responsibilities but the resources, be it human or financial resources that they need to undertake their activities are lacking.

“… We need to work at that because it is very important, and we need to work at sustaining it and making it more effective. In Ghana, if we look at our current system of local governance, we’ve had it for about 35 years but if we do an introspection and analyze the effectiveness of our local government system, we will come to the realization that it is very important, but we’ve not delivered as much as we expected of it.”
Fred Oduro Agyarko