U/W NCCE holds discussion to deepen democracy


The Upper West Regional Directorate of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is organizing community durbars and focus group discussions to deepen democracy through the active participation of the citizenry in the Local Governance System. 

This was announced by the Upper West Regional Director of the Commission, Husheini Sulemana Haruna in Wa. 

According to the Director, the project which is being sponsored by the European Union started in December 2015. 

Mr. Haruna stated that six community durbars and two focus group discussions have been held adding that the communities that hosted the durbars were Dupare, Brifoh, Veaire, Logu, Tumu, Issa and Ul-Kpong whilst Tumu and Wa were venues for the focus group discussions. 

The program seeks to educate people on how the various power structures, right from the Unit Committee level, through the Area Councils to the District Assemblies relate to each other to achieve a common goal.  

Mr. Haruna indicated that the Upper West NCCE is working around the clock to ensure that many communities as possible benefit from the engagements to further enrich decentralization and local governance. 

He pointed out that unrealistic demand from assembly members and unit committees has been identified as one of the key challenges of the local government system. 

According to Radio Ghana’s Emmanuel Mensah-Abludo, the NCCE Director also mentioned low capacity of some Assembly members to deliver, low citizen participation, over reliance on the District Assemblies Common Fund and low voter turnout as some of the other challenges of the system. 

At the engagements, the Assembly and Unit Committee Members were made to make presentations on their “duties and challenges” then followed by open forums. 

Mr. Haruna entreated government to place premium on assembly members in order to attract more qualified people and emphasized the need for assembly members to be resourced to enable them do their work efficiently.

GBC