Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of Wednesday, 27th July 2022
The residents of Sunyani and Chiraa are complaining bitterly about the condition of the road linking the two towns.
According to the residents, the road is in terrible condition and has taken a huge toll on residents and vehicles, which has led to numerous deaths and accidents on that stretch of road.
The Daily Searchlight believes that one of the cardinal duties of metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies is to ensure necessary reporting systems to the government on endemic problems that fall beyond their jurisdiction and competence.
Since it is well-known that virtually all the MMDCEs in Ghana lack the capacity to contract for the construction of road works, it seems that the ball would fall on the central government to construct most if not all of such roads in Ghana.
However, the government can only live up to its responsibility if there are clear and adequate reporting systems in place with the various MMDCEs that ensure that various reports get to the government.
We call on the Ministry of Local Government to put in place the necessary training regimes for MMDCEs and Coordinating Councils to ensure that adequate reports are made to the government in Accra.
Again, in the near future, we believe that it would be necessary for the government to revisit the concept of making the position of MMDCE elective so that they would be more responsive in their duties to the people they govern.
(This article was first published in the column EDITORIAL of the Daily Searchlight on Wednesday, 27th July, 2022. The Daily Searchlight appears on the newsstands of Ghana every working day and PDF versions are available for sale online twenty-four hours a day all day throughout the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
