The inauguration follows the successful District Level Elections in December last year that elected new assembly and unit committee members to serve in the various assemblies for the next four years.

The event would take place in 259 assemblies out of the 261 where the elections took place last year, except Nkoranza North and South in the Bono East Region which had their elections in 2021 instead of 2019.

The District Level Elections are held every four years and take place a year before the Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Since 1988, Ghana has had nine successive local-level elections including the ones last year, to engender greater citizens’ participation in the process.

Section six of the Local Governance Act 2016(Act 936) as amended by Act 940, provided that District Level Elections?should be held every four years with an interval between it and the Presidential and Parliamentary elections being at least six months apart.

Inauguration

As part of the inauguration, representatives of the President would deliver his inaugural address and all elected assembly and unit committee members across the 259 MMDAs would be sworn in to officially commence their mandate to ensure the smooth and effective discharge of their duties in their respective electoral areas.

Ahead of the inauguration today, the Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Dan Botwe, told the Daily Graphic that the government was determined to ensure that a significant number of women and people living with disabilities (PWDs) were appointed to serve in the various MMDAs.

Consequently, he said the majority of the 30 per cent of government appointees to the 259 MMDAs that would be inaugurated today would be women and PWDs.

Mr Botwe said the President had paid heed to the calls to ensure that more women and PWDs were appointed to serve this year.

“The President is determined that this year, we will have a higher number of female representation and recognition will also be given to people with disabilities to the assemblies than ever before,” he said.

Recall

The Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD) rescheduled the nationwide inauguration of the MMDAs, to today, February 12 after an initial announcement of February 6, 2024, for the event.  

The event was rescheduled as it coincided with the reconvening of Parliament and also to allow MPs who were part of the assemblies to attend the inauguration today.

Statistics

Of the 66,257 candidates who contested in the district assembly elections held in December last year, 18,755 were assembly member candidates, while 47,502 were unit committee candidates according to statistics sourced from the Electoral Commission.

Out of the 18,755 candidates, 6,215 were elected to serve in the 259 MMDAs, per Section 5 (1) (b) Local Government Act, 2016 (Act 936) which states that "A District Assembly shall consist of one person from each electoral area within the district elected by universal adult suffrage following regulations made for the purpose by the Electoral Commission".

For the unit committee members, 31,075 were elected out of the 47,502, given that each electoral area had five unit committee members.