The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), has asked aspiring Assembly and Unit Committee Members to desist from promising capital projects ahead of this year’s District Level Elections.
Speaking to the Tema West NCCE director Mr. Fidel Bortey on Plan B FM Ebaanosen with Ohene Kinnah, he said their roles as elected assembly and unit committee members would be to organize communal labor, collate views and complaints from community members and present them to the Assemblies for redress and urged them to keep to that mandate.
Mr. Bortey said Assembly and Unit Committee members should not emulate parliamentarians in making promises for capital projects because they have no common fund for such.
“The reality is that MPs have a common fund, but Assembly members don’t have and don’t have to make those promises. By the time you even enter the Assembly, the development plan has already been made and budgeted for,” he said.
“Some Assembly members make campaign promises, get to the Assemblies and cannot fulfill them,” Mr. Bortey noted, adding that a study on District Level Elections indicated that MPs were seen more as development agents.
Some local governance experts believe that the practice of Assembly member aspirants promising capital projects was due to how apathy had characterized local-level elections over the years.
The Electoral Commission has slated October 3 for the District Level Elections, however, yet to announce the processes, including dates for filing of nominations.
The date, according to the Commission, is subject to change depending on the early approval of the Constitutional
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