Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Thursday called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) to eschew arrogance, intolerance and other divisive tendencies that could impede the progress of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in subsequent general elections.
"As government's representatives at the grassroots, you must evolve ways to engage the attention of these young party cadres in the programmes being rolled out at the district level to create economic opportunities for them."
Vice President who was addressing the annual conference of Chief Executives of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in Accra
denounced several incidents that had over the months engaged Chief Executives and party footsoldiers in their respective operational areas.
The conference which brought together all chief executives all over the country is aimed at giving them the opportunity to share ideas and adopt pragmatic methods of delivering on grassroot democracy and participation.
The Vice President said the internal divisions, misunderstandings and destructions among party members were preventing the government from telling its success stories to Ghanaians adding, "You must discuss and find an
antidote to the phenomenon of rampaging footsoldiers who pose not only an increasing threat to good governance, but also the fortunes of our party in the next elections."
He said the behaviour of footsoldiers had the potential of scaring away "the middle ground, non-committed or so-called floating voters that every party needs desperately to attract to win elections in the country."
The Vice President mentioned the broad national stakeholders conference, the local government 1961 Legislative Instrument,
inter-ministerial coordinating committee on decentralization, urban management and Citizen's monitoring as some of the areas government had
fulfilled as promised in the NDC manifesto and called on the Chief Executives to highlight on their success stories, rather than dwelling on
internal wrangling.
Mr. Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, tasked the MMDCEs to constantly upgrade the knowledge of their people on National Government policies to make them accustomed to current government activities.
He urged them to champion the decentralization programme by putting in place the necessary structures that would promote grassroot democracy and good governance in the country.
Mr. Paul Victor Obeng, Chairman, National Development Planning Commission, who chaired the function, urged them to establish good rapport
with traditional and religious leaders in order to achieve their aim of entrenching democracy and serving their people satisfactorily.