Head of Local Government Service, Dr Nana Ato Arthur, has called for the election of Assembly Members to be done on partisan lines in order to increase voter turnout.
Speaking on the Big Agenda with Nana Osei Ampofo Adjei on Adom TV, he said that turnout for District Assembly elections since 1992 has never gone beyond 40%.
He refuted claims that politicising District Assembly elections will reduce its credibility arguing that the elections are already political, but not on paper.
“Look, we’re always deceiving ourselves. We say District Assembly elections are non-partisan, but look at the aspirants. Even their poster colours will tell you which political party they belong to. When President Kufuor appointed me as DCE for KEEA in 2001, the Assembly Members voted to confirm me along party lines. So I think we are being hypocritical on these issues,” he said.
He also denied the notion that running on political party tickets will affect the credibility of the elections and the performance of the Assembly members.
He explained that “we vote for MPs on political lines. Has that affected the duties of MPs or Parliament? Why are we doing it successfully at the top, but cannot do same at the local level?”
He also touched on some of the successes of the Local government service under his tenure. According to him, the service has increased its staff strength since his tenure began.
“As I speak to you we have employed 13,750 working at the Local Government service, since March 2017 when President Akufo-Addo appointed me. If you add this to what I came to meet, we have over 45,000 staff strength,” he said.
He said that some of these employees are responsible for improving community sanitation, previously known as ‘Town Council’.
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