The Local Government Minister, Dan Botwe, says supporters of aspirants who did not make it to the list of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCE) nominees have no basis for their protests.

Speaking on PM Express, he explained that “All those who appeared before the committee left with the understanding that they are just putting themselves up and the final decision rests with the president.  

“Mr President was not bound even to select someone from among them.”

Mr Dan Botwe explained that President Akufo-Addo in 2017 appointed individuals who were neither recommended nor showed up for vetting but were competent as MMDCEs, hence describing the unrest as needless.

“Why are we even making an issue out of this. So that the President sets up a committee to do some work and advice him, they bring the report, and he decides to appoint different people, and it is an issue?

“A government sets up a high-powered committee, they bring their work, government issues a white paper accepting some of the recommendations and rejecting some, and it is done. So what is strange about the fact that the President sets up a committee internally to advise him, not bound by any statutory injunction.

“He does it for his education for him to make a decision. It happened in 2017. There are others who never submitted themselves to the process, but they were appointed, so let’s not make it an issue.

“It absolutely has no basis at all. [To say] because somebody came for an interview and he was shortlisted, came to the National level, the Committee recommended that you should be given the position, the President says ‘no, I take the final decision.

“I think it should be somebody else’ and you think it is a justification for anybody to misbehave, absolutely not,” he told Evans Mensah on Monday.

The release of President Akufo-Addo’s list of MMDCE nominees was greeted with violent disagreements in parts of the country.

Some supporters of the NPP in the Chereponi and East Mamprusi Districts of the North East region went on a rampage, vandalising party property.

On the way forward, Mr Botwe expects that majority of MMDCEs will be confirmed in the next 10 days.

Mr Botwe said the law should take its course regardless of the political leanings of perpetrators of the violent protests.