The Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) has held a seminar to hightlight the postive outcomes for the country should Ghanaians vote 'yes' during the December 17^th referendum.

The referendum to approve the bill for the amendment of Article 55, subsection 3 of the 1992 Constitution if passed, will have many positive implications for the country, IDEG said during the seminar on November 6.

Director of the Institute for Local Government Studies, Dr Nicholas Awortwi, described the bill as “the beginning of the game changer of our local government.”

He said that a new decentralisation policy on terms favourable to local politicians will be required to cater for the responsibilities and duties that will be placed on the local government.

According to him, after electing District Chief Executives (DCEs), the implementation of fiscal decentralisation policies would be necessary to provide the local government with the adequate resources to carry out their duties.

He added that allowing political parties to sponsor candidates in district level elections will heighten the interest of citizens and increase the turn out during these elections.

Additionally, some are of the opinion that the passing of the bill will make the decentralised local governance worse and can cause tension if DCEs sponsored by the oppositon party should win in certain areas.

“If you go to Cameroon, if you go to Nairobi, Lagos, Johannesburg, Capetown you have a situation where you have a divided authority where the party that is winning in the local government is different from the party that is at the central level but they’re not up in arms fighting. And so when people think that once we become a multi-party system it will be polarized and people will start fighting, I think it's overblown. It is not going to happen”, he said.