Ketu South: NCCE Mobilizes Political Parties, Religious Groups, Others for National Cohesion and Governance

The Ketu South Municipal Director of the
National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Evelyn Klokpodzi, has mobilized personnel from the various institutions including political parties, religious bodies, government agencies, civil society and non governmental organizations, market women, among others for the national cause.

The move is to allow for their participation in national cohesion and governance drive.

At a brief ceremony at the Ketu South Municipal Assembly to induct the team into office madam Klokpodzi said national cohesion and inclusiveness are necessary for tolerance and peaceful co-existence.

She said nation building is a shared responsibility that requires citizens from all facets of life to be well informed about issues bothering on governance and nation building – a mandate of her outfit.

She tasked the newly inducted team to live up to expectations and to support her and her outfit to deliver on their mandate adding that her outfit is poised to take civic education to a different level in the Municipality.

The Second-in-command for the National Intelligence Bureau (NiB) in the Ketu South Municipality, George Azizi in his remarks emphasized the bureau’s aims of achieving development in an integrated way – economically, socially and environmentally to meet the needs of present generations and without compromising the ability of future generations to participate in the processes that impact their lives.

According to him, the National Security apparatus normally gets involved on four key elements essential for the day to day running of Ghana’s security affairs including: Governance, Delivery of Basic Services, Economic Reconstruction and Sustainable Development, Security Sector Reform and the safety and well-being of the people of Ghana.

Aziz noted that while the legal foundation is an important mechanism to ensure people’s engagement in decisions that affect their lives, fighting crimes and security consciousness that will bind collective peace building, more effective approaches are needed to recognize the diversity, identities and abilities of all citizens to participate in these processes and improve institutional arrangements that enable them to do so, adding that “such processes while empowering participation, may challenge existing structures and relations of power, yet they are crucial for both fair decision-making and equitable outcomes”

He said collaboration and participation of political parties in Ghana especially the two major political parties in the processes of truth and justice and their leaders being altruistic in their activities and inculcating same in their followers can in turn facilitate the mobilization of resources at the local level to combat crimes, intelligence gathering, and pool competencies and create synergies that will otherwise help National Security, NiB and other security agencies and professionals to carry out their mandates without interference especially during this period of the flooding of our nation Ghana by nationals from other countries like Niger, Mali, Nigeria and others because of the peace and tranquility the country is noted for.

He called on stakeholders and all citizens at large to get on board and freely participate in giving information to enable security agencies to continue policing our boarders as the influx of foreigners into the country especially through unapproved routes along the Aflao boarder is becoming alarming despite the closure of the boarders following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the 2IC, per statistics available to his outfit, about 400 foreigners find their ways into the territory of Ghana through these unapproved routes on a daily basis and amazingly some of these immigrants are minors from 8-14 years who sometimes are traveling alone.

According to Aziz, the influx of foreigners into our territory if not checked could lead to the displacement of citizen-workers who then experience structural unemployment.”

For example, if migrants gain unskilled labour because they are willing to work for lower wages those native-born low-skilled workers may find it harder to gain new employment in higher-skilled occupations” he said, adding that “these migrants are more prepared to take on low paid, low skilled jobs”.

Cyber fraud increases on daily basis and serial killing increases too, all these are threats to Ghana’s security, hence the need for all citizens, government and Civil Society Institutions, religious bodies, etc to participate in the nation building agenda

By Hebrews Pouyeli Kumako