Local government elections across the nation are notorious for having low voter turnouts.

Ahead of the upcoming local government elections scheduled for Tuesday, December 19, the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Kathleen Addy, is urging Ghanaians to partake in this important exercise.

According to her, while public apathy towards local government elections is not new, she hopes that more citizens will take interest in who gets to occupy positions at the local government level.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, she explained that the local government is a microcosm of the national government and thus most of the development decisions are made at that level.

“I think it’s important that people pay more attention to the activities of the local assembly. The assembly is responsible for a whole range of things. The local assembly is almost a replication of the political and administrative system at the national level, so it is important that people really engage,” she said.

Ms. Addy, however, attributed the public’s apathy towards local government elections to the fact that the head of the local government i.e. the Municipal/District Chief Executive is not elected.

“One of the ways we could solve this problem is to elect the head of the local government. I think it’s a gap. People will hold accountable the people they elect and to the extent that the head of the local government is appointed even though the members, 70% of the members are elected, people feel like if they elect you, they can hold you more accountable.

“And you can tell by the kind of pressure they put on their members of parliament who even though are not development agents and are not responsible for development in the local area, in the district, the citizens feel that they should be more accountable to them. So that’s the gap,” she explained.