Ahwoi`s advice should have come earlier

A former minister of local government and rural development, Mr. Kwamena Ahwoi is reported to have told a workshop organised by the Public Agenda and the Institute of Local Government Studies recently that the decision to raise Tamale, Cape Coast and Tema from municipal to metropolitan assemblies contravenes the Local Government Act, 1993, Act 462.

Public Agenda quoted him as saying that the decision by the immediate past government to raise certain district assemblies to municipal status was equally illegal. According to him the local government act requires that there should be a minimum population of 250, 000 for a district to acquire metropolitan status. He argued that the three municipal assemblies which have been elevated to metropolitan status have a population of 82,291 for Cape Coast and 141,479 for Tema according to the 2000 population and Housing census. This, he continued, falls short of the 250,000 required by law.

Mr. Kwamena Ahwoi who is currently a lecturer at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) is an expert in local government therefore one cannot challenge him when he raises questions about our local government system. In fact he played a leading role in the operationalisation of the concept by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) after being pioneered by the Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia's government.

The Chronicle is however disappointed in him for his comment that the elevation of certain municipalities to metropolitan status was illegal. Apart from being a lecturer at GIMPA, Mr. Ahwoi is also one of the leading members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) which was then in the opposition when the new metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies were created. One would have, therefore, though that the former minister would raise the issue when he detected the breach of the law for the creation of the assemblies but this did not happen.

He kept quite over the issue till now when he himself admitted “that it is also neither politically prudent nor advisable to undo what has been done”. With his pronouncement anyone who wants to disturb the government can go to court to challenge the creation of the aforementioned assemblies. The Courts only deal with the law therefore if they found out that the then government breached the law, they would definitely rule against the government.

Now considering the amount of money that had already been pumped into the creation of the assemblies, one can imagine how the country is going to suffer if the courts direct that the status quo be maintained.

This is the reason why we have expressed our disappointment in Mr. Kwamena Ahwoi because if he had raised the concern when the assemblies were being created, it would have saved us from this trouble. As it is now the harm has already been caused, we are only praying that no mischievous person would move to court to challenge the status of the new assemblies.