File photo: Counting of votes

Vice President of Groupe Nduom, Nana Ofori Owusu, says Ghanaians should vote ‘Yes’ come December, 17 for the referendum on the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) for proper checks and balances.

To Mr Owusu he doesn’t see the relevance of voting from the presidential level to the unit committee level and excluding the MMDCE level.

“We have to vote ‘Yes’, Progressive People’s Party is of the view that if we can vote for the president, Member of Parliament why skip MMDCE’s to vote for assembly men and unit committee members?” he quizzed.

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He further said the initiative will help to ensure proper checks and balances since it wouldn’t be a one party affair.

“We always say the winner takes all, if a party is in power it means everything that goes on locally will be influenced by the government. This retards the implementation of proper checks  and  balances which might retard development at the local levels,” he told Accra-based Peace FM, monitored by Adomonine.com.

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The election of MMDCEs was a major campaign promise of the New Patriotic Party in the run-up to the 2016 election. The government recently took steps to begin the process by presenting an amendment bill to Parliament. The bill, which seeks to amend an article of the constitution, will make it constitutional to have MMDCES elected on a partisan basis.

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