Mr. Emmanuel Nsoh-Atindana, former Presiding Member (PM) of the Bongo District Assembly in the Upper East Region, has expressed worry about the low number of women contesting the District Assembly Election in the District.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bongo, he said out of the 101 candidates who filed at the end of nominations to contest the Assembly elections in the 38 Electoral Areas in the Bongo district, only seven are women.
The former PM who is also former Assemblyman for the Zorko-Tardong electoral area, said he was surprised that out of the over 60 women from
various communities in the district who expressed interest to contest the forthcoming District Assembly Election and were provided with training to build their capacities to contest the election only seven of them had filed for the impending election.
"This situation was not only peculiar to the Bongo District Assembly but it cuts across all the nine Districts in the Region which is not the
best", he declared.
According to him, the situation could send a bad signal to organizations that had over the years been supporting women by organizing
capacity building programmes for them with the aim of getting them to contest the Assembly election.
"It is not easy to get funds for these training workshops, but considering the importance of women in the Assembly and Community
Development, the Bongo Civic Union, the Assembly and some stakeholders in the struggle for Gender Parity, raised funds to build the Capacity of women ahead of the forthcoming District level elections, but this is disappointing".
He urged women to be bold and resolute and not to give up when it comes to elections especially the District Assembly election.
He said he was however happy that all the five former women Assembly members who were government appointees in the Bongo District Assembly had filed their nomination to contest the District Assembly elections.
The PM entreated women to emulate the five women, stressing that the concerns of women would continued to be overlooked if women did not stand on their feet.
He pointed out that women could do better in terms of development and said they were the majority and therefore it was incumbent on women
themselves to rally behind their fellow women and support them to win future elections.
Mr. Nsor-Atindana suggested that mock parliaments should be established in Junior and Senior High Schools for girls to develop the interest in debate and politics.