Towards the Election of MMDCEs: A Case for Local Government Reforms in Ghana

Decentralization is a demonstration of balance of power. Therefore, when central governments do not make a conscious decision to decentralize, their decisions and actions increasingly make local governments powerless (Awortwi, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 77(2) 347–377, 2011). Over the period, there have been many reform processes which have targeted the administrative, political and fiscal components of local governance in Ghana. The most ambitious and politically daring reform proposal of the system by the central government has been the election of Chief Executives as political heads of local government units. This chapter asks; would the election of Chief Executives at the subnational scale improve local governance in Ghana?