MMDCEs Appointment: Akufo-Addo has failed Ghanaians – Ex-MP

Former Member of Parliament for the Mion constituency Mohammed Abdul-Aziz has stated that President Nana Akufo-Addo’s delay in appointing Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) nine months into his second term is a failure of his mandate to the people of Ghana.

He said President Akufo-Addo is not a new President but rather continuing from a first term which has had MMDCEs in office from 2016 to 2020.

As a result, the excuse that the list of MMDCEs is still going through a process cannot be a good one.

Mr Abdul-Aziz said he and his party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), thinks the president has failed in that regard for failing to appoint MMDCEs to carry on their mandates as the executives in their local authorities across the country.

The former Mion legislator pointed out that if the President had any respect for local governance, he would not have behaved in the manner he is behaving towards the MMDCE appointments.

He observed that when President Akufo-Addo directed the MMDCEs to act until new ones are appointed, it was a violation of the constitution.

Mr Abdul-Aziz said the appointment of MMDCEs is a shared responsibility between the President and the local assemblies, with the President nominating a candidate and the assemblymen in their local jurisdictions voting for or against them.

He, therefore, pointed out that if the President takes the onus upon himself without recourse to assemblymen to direct his first-tenure MMDCEs to continue to work in an acting capacity, he is in contravention of the law.





Mr Abdul-Aziz made this known while on TV3‘s New Day with host Johnnie Hughes on Monday, September 13.

He was commenting on the backdrop of the delay by President Akufo-Addo to appoint heads of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) some nine months after his re-election.

“The issue of local governance is a very important issue and we should not be engaged in the usual partisan discussions of these issues because the MMDCEs are responsible for development at the local level, they represent the President at the local level. And so you cannot underestimate the role that they play, either in terms of policy implementation, infrastructure or any kind of development. Currently, as it stands, it is the President who has to nominate for the assembly members to approve or otherwise,” he pointed out.

He added: “President Akufo-Addo, whether you like it or not, has failed the people of this country, in respect to the appointment of MMDCEs. This is a President who has handed over to himself, he is not a new President. He has been around for five years now, it’s not as if he just won power, he knows his party men, he had MMDCEs in place for the last four years that he has been in office. So the story that they are still going through the process cannot be a good one, we think that he has failed in that regard. If the President has any respect for local governance, he will not be doing what he is doing.”

Source:3news.com