Warped Logic

Kwamena Ahwoi’s detestation of making the appointment of District Chief Executives (DCE) elective is insincere. While we do not doubt his mastery of local governance issues, we do so for the sincerity and logic of his position. It is our stance that the Ghana Institute of Management And Public Administration (GIMPA) lecturer seeks to protect a certain political interest by the insincere position which he has dangled for far too long in the face of Ghanaians. It serves the interest of the President more than the state when DCEs and MCEs are appointed by the Number One Citizen because such officials concentrate more on protecting his interest and priming themselves for overthrowing sitting MPs. Mr. Ahwoi, with a number of research publications on local government to his credit, should not be the man to turn facts upside down with such recklessness. Claiming that applying the Universal Adult Suffrage option for the appointment of DCEs and MCEs would lead to the appointment of incompetent persons does not make sense. It constitutes an insult to the House of Parliament whose membership was voted as such. We have no cause to think that this path has led to the voting of less competent MPs into Parliament anyway. The election option, he added, would encourage the use of the ethnic card to the detriment of minority groupings in the engagement of such officials. He sounds as though the election of MPs has certain inbuilt mechanisms to obviate the aforementioned challenges as he noted.People vote for representatives for several reasons, some of which, although pedestrian in quality, are factual and indisputable. While some vote for people because of ethnicity, competence and popularity, others consider other factors such as money the candidates possess and part with and this Kwamena Ahwoi is aware of. His preference for the status quo, the president’s appointment of such officials, is flawed and another way of muzzling development, the real reason for local governance. The Swiss Canton system and the enviable French local government module both allow for competitiveness in the distribution of development throughout a country. We find his position, which he has incessantly spilled on the public domain, repulsive and really logically incomprehensible. His position serves the best interest of dictators who think that only they understand what is best for the electorate, a segment of the population whom they consider too unintelligent to decide on who should represent them. If this is not an insult to the intelligence of the electorate, we do not know what else is. His suggestion that the President should nominate DCEs and MCEs for the consideration of the Public Service Commission sounds weird. Are such interviews by the commission meant to gauge the ability of such nominees to communicate in the English Language or what? The Commission could as well appoint such officials to run the districts and municipalities as though they were state enterprises. We are amazed that with his rich background in the subject, he would be mendacious with the realities.