Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) 2024 campaign, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, has called out Ghana’s lack of genuine commitment to decentralisation.

According to him, many of the country’s pressing development issues such as streetism, illegal structures, and encroachment stem from an overreliance on central government.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s Breakfast Daily on Wednesday, May 21, he said, “Until we go full decentralised, we are not going to get to where we are staging to go. Each of the countries that we aspire to be like is fully decentralised. Their development is not anchored on the central government, but it is anchored on municipalities."

Mr. Aboagye pointed out that although Ghana’s democratic framework was designed to empower local governance, successive administrations, regardless of party have failed to give district assemblies the autonomy and resources needed to function effectively.

“You do not expect that issues like streetism, building on waterways, and encroachment should be handled or even guided by the central government. It will never work. We are being hypocritical about our decentralisation."

“It has nothing to do with the NDC or the NPP. The central government never wants the district assemblies to be fully functional. It is only when they are there that they want them to function,” he said.