Some of the irate youth blocked the road at Ningo
In a rare show of synchronization, several officials in the John Atta Mills government were on Thursday, June 28, dispatched simultaneously to 46 newly created municipal and district assemblies across the country.
These districts were created under extremely controversial circumstances and the haste at which the new local government administration centres were inaugurated has more than deepened suspicions within several quarters in the country.
Without a doubt, the procedures leading to the eventual demarcations were done in a not-too-tidy manner. When the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, tabled the legislative instruments for the new local governments before parliament early this year, legislators punched several holes in his submission because it was riddled with several defects which prompted the lawmakers to recommend its withdrawal.
According to the legislators, allowing the instruments to come into force with such multiple defects will be illegal and contravening the constitution and the Local Government Act of 1993 (Act 462).
However, using its numbers in parliament, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentarians pushed the legislation through in spite of the many defects.
This raised questions about the real motive of the ruling party?s obsession with creating new districts. Some political analysts have seen this to mean a clever ploy by the ruling party to alter the geographic boundaries to give it electoral advantage in what is called ?gerrymandering?.
Indeed, a cursory glance at the new districts created by the Mills administration subtly reveals that majority of the districts are situated in the Volta and the northern part of the country which are noted for their voting allegiance towards the ruling party.
Some of the Ningo youth inspecting vehicles plying the area
The problem is compounded by the ripple effect of the Electoral Commission (EC) to create new constituencies in synchronization with the new districts. The EC argues that it is mandated by law to use the model of the geographical demarcations to create its own constituencies, especially in tandem with the population census. The EC has vowed to carry out this mandate unless it is stopped by the Supreme Court.
Opponents of the new districts and municipalities are hinging their concerns on the apparent inequalities that may result from the combined effect of the new local government administrative centres and the electoral constituencies that the EC will be creating.
Opposition political parties are not exactly amused by the fact that after the new creation, the government?s strongholds have seen a significant boost while their own strongholds and other swing regions have basically been accorded a paltry part of the geographic and electoral remapping.
For instance, Greater Accra Region- a popular swing region, with arguably the second biggest population of 4.01million, will get only 34 seats, while the Upper East Region, a stronghold of the NDC with a population barely exceeding 1million, gets to own 15. Several examples are replicated in other NDC strongholds.
The fact that the proposals were pushed through even before an updated census figure was released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the fact that there is a pending court proceedings on the case, proved a pre-conceived agenda by the Mills government.
Former Attorney General Nii Ayikoi Otoo has described the government?s action as contemptuous of the Supreme Court.
Of course, the main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which feels it will be at a disadvantage by the strategy, has been up-in-arms against the government for a creation described as an illegality. ?The creation of several of the new districts constitute an illegality and that in the re-alignment exercise, the EC woefully failed to address the problem of equity and fairness to all by ensuring equal representation,? says Prof. Mike Oquaye, a political scientist who is incidentally a key stalwart in the NPP.
?The government tried to jump the gun and has landed us in a quagmire,? says Prof. Oquaye, Second deputy Speaker of Parliament. And what a quagmire it has been. Judging from the widespread agitations and anger that have been sparked by the new districts, and municipalities, it is clear that the NDC government is in for a real battle.
Several areas have erupted in protests; some violent and some cast in high tempo rhetoric. The government has mobilised security personnel in apparent anticipation of physical acts of the aggrieved people in protests across the country: In Asokore Mampong in the Ashanti Region, irate youth of the town who thought that a new district has alienated them, engaged in fisticuffs during the inauguration ceremony on Thursday.
Volta Region
Out of the seven districts created in the Volta Region, about three of them, namely North Tongu, North Dayi and Ho West, had people contesting against their inauguration, Fred Duodo reports from Ho.
In North Tongu, for instance, four traditional areas, Dorfor, Volo, Fodzoku and Torgorme, which form the majority, contested the siting of the district at Battor-Dugame which they considered less developed.
In North Dayi, the Vakpo traditional also contested the location of the district capital at Anfoega which the Vakpo people say did not deserve because the people of Anfoega were not indigenous to the district. In the Ho West, the Peki traditional area, which is in South Dayi district, called for a halt of the inauguration until a decision was taken on who owns the Dededo-Kportornu land which has been ceded to the new Ho-West District.
Amidst all the confusion, there was a downpour; however, this did not stop the programme from going on.
Brong Ahafo Region
Apparently, the Supreme Court has prohibited the government from inaugurating the newly-created Sene East District in the Brong Ahafo Region. However, the court order was defied by the Mills administration which has gone ahead to inaugurate the district, Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako, reports from Sunyani.
The disputed district was on Thursday inaugurated by the Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, under a heavily armed police cum military personnel numbering about 1000.
Consequently, all the 76 towns and villages in the area, including their 15 assembly members, boycotted the inauguration ceremony in protest of the use of Kajeji as the district capital.
According to Nana Owusu Sakyi III, the Paramount Chief of the traditional area, he had earlier secured a court injunction restraining the government from inaugurating the new district.
The chief says the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, the District Chief Executive for Sene and among other key stakeholders were duly served with the injunction, but it was conveniently ignored.
Central Region
Some of the Ekumfi chiefs at the inauguration of the assembly
The chiefs and people of Jukwa in the Twifo-Hemang-Lower-Denkyira District of the Central Region have vowed to alienate the NDC Government for situating their new district capital at Hemang, writes Sarah Owusu-Darlington from Hemang.
The people in this area have promised not to cooperate with the new assembly in accessing internally generated revenue if government does not rescind its decision of siting the capital at Hemang. The bulk of revenue in the area, they claim, comes from Jukwa.
According to them, Jukwa has all the basic amenities and infrastructure for the immediate take-off of the assembly. Apparently, the government chose Hemang without conducting the necessary consultations.
At a press conference organised at Jukwa on Tuesday, the Denkyira queenmother, Nana Ama Ayensua Saara III, stated that government has taken an entrenched position to slight Lower Denkyira in this matter at all cost, regardless of the people?s feelings.
?We see this as deliberate attempt to deprive the people of Lower Denkyira of what is rightly due us,? she says
According to the visibly angry queen, the Denkyira and Twifo Hemang has had peaceful, harmonious and brotherly relations for ages and will not sit down and allow the elevation of the constituency to destroy their relationship.
To carry through their threat, none of the nine elected assembly members from Jukwa attended the inauguration due to an injunction placed on the ceremony.
Despite the injunction, the assembly was inaugurated, with the Central Regional President of House of Chiefs, Daasebre Kwebu Ewusie representing the president.
The election of the presiding member (PM) could not come on because the Electoral Commission refused to supervise the ceremony because of the court injunction.
The Ekumfi district was however inaugurated successfully where hundreds of people drawn from the district graced the colourful ceremony.
The people included chiefs, politicians, opinion leaders, queenmothers among others.
Addressing the enthusiastic crowd, the Central Regional Minister, Mrs Comfort Ama Benyiwa Doe, expressed concern about the way the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been dragging the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to court because of the creation of the new districts.
?We the NDC members supported the NPP when they created new districts in 2007 since we realized that will help to ensure total development at the doorstep of our people,? she said.
Western Region
The Western Region was relatively calmer; however, landlords in the newly-created Mpohor District of the Western Region were appealed to, to offer reasonable and affordable rents to officers who will be posted to work in the new district assembly, Emmanuel Opoku reports from Mpohor.
According to Anthony Bassaw, District Chief Executive of Wassa East, this will make the officers feel comfortable to work to ensure accelerated development in the new district which has been created from the Mpohor Wassa East District.
The boss of Wassa East made the passionate appeal during the inauguration of the newly-created district at Mpohor last Thursday.
He also urged the people in the district to pay their required taxes regularly to enable the Mpohor district to get more revenue for development projects.
Greater Accra
Apparently, the creation and inauguration of the newly-created Ningo Prampram district assembly did not go down well with some youth of Ningo who went on rampage, destroying properties and attacking some natives, Vincent Kubi writes from Ningo.
The irate youth, clad in red bands, angrily blocked the two main routes to and from Ningo by burning lorry tyres and stopping to check every vehicle that was going out of the town to see whether there was a Ningo native attending the inauguration of the new assembly at Prampram, their sister town.
Over three thousands residents of Ningo traditional area also joined in the protest against government?s decision not to make Ningo the district capital of the newly created Ningo-Prampram District.
The youth stated that nothing will please them apart from bringing the district capital to Ningo where it ought to be or continue to be under Dodowa; hence they will never accept to be under Prampram.
Some natives of the town who intended to attend the function were forced out from their vehicles, with the area police who were on duty at the scene looking on helplessly in their vehicles.
The fuming youth, who rampaged through the Ningo town, said there was going to be a ?civil war? between the two traditional towns if government failed to create a new district for them instead of maintaining Prampram as the district capital. The Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, Enoch Teye Mensah, had earlier downplayed the confusion.
The MP, who doubles as Minister for Water, Resources, Works and Housing, claimed there was no confusion in the area over the inauguration of the newly created Ningo-Prampram district.
He told a section of the media soon after the inauguration, ?Who told you there is a misunderstanding or war between Prampram and Ningo? There is no misunderstanding or war so why do we talk of peace??
But Superintendent Abraham Kwau, Ningo-Prampram District Police Commander, says about 20 youth have been arrested in connection with a riot in the area over the inauguration of the new assembly.
Security of Tenure of DCE
Meanwhile, just when the situation was gaining intense momentum, President Evans Atta Mills has made a proposal that might generate as much bile as the controversial demarcation: he is proposing an unlimited tenure for District Chief Executives (DCEs).
According to the president, the current two four-year term limit on the DCEs will be removed to make DCEs have unlimited term of office, Stella Danso reports from La in Accra.
President Mills says that conflicts between DCEs and MPs is as a result of the non-security in the current system and is of the view that the accepted recommendations of the Constitution Review Commission, as related to the local government and decentralization sector, will help cease the conflicts.
President Mills made the announcement in a speech read on his behalf by the chief of staff, Henry Martey Newman, at the inauguration of La Dade-Kotopon Municipal Assembly yesterday at La, an Accra suburb.
?The constitution Review Commission has proposed that the president will nominate five persons to be interviewed by the Public Services Commission, out of which the three best will be voted for in a public election by the registered voters in the district,? he states.
