Ebow Godwin
22 April 2004
Lomé — Over 130 delegates from all socio-economic walks of life including traditional chiefs, professional bodies, civil societies, churches, Muslim communities, opposition political parties with the help of international experts on Thursday evening adopted a new national political blue-print aimed at the reinforcement and consolidation of existing decentralisation of local government structures in Togo.
The recommendations aim at disengaging the direct control of central government from local political authorities in order to give the grass roots more say in actualising their own economic development.
The national blue-print was the fulfilment of a 3-day brainstorms workshop held at the Corinthia Hotel 2Fevrier in the Lomé capital which began last Tuesday.
The workshop was organised by the Togo Ministry of the Interior, Security and Decentralisation with financial support from the UNDP and the EU.
The adoption of the local and municipal council's blue-print came after four committees were set up to study to details of existing laws and structures of decentralisation in Togo with a view to making recommendations that would help reinforce, strengthen and consolidate the state of local government in Togo.
The four committees were the Legal and Constitutional Committee, the Finance Committee, the Communication and Development Strategy Committee and the Human Resources Training Committee.
Togo, it will be recalled has not held local and municipal elections for the past seventeen years. The last one was held in 1987.
And most councillors have since then continued to hold office by virtue of a law passed in 1998 by Togo's multi-party parliament which gave President Gnassingbé Eyadéma the powers to extend their mandate until fresh elections are held.
President Eyadéma in June last year announced plans for local, municipal and senatorial elections in Togo but the plans were withdrawn last December to allow for more preparations and education to be carried out among the population.
The 130 delegates unanimously recommended that elections into the local and municipal councils be based on universal suffrage throughout Togo.
They also recommended the principle of progressive transfer of competence, financial and material resources to the local councils to make them autonomous.
But they suggested that the central government must grant the Lomé capital, a special urban status with representation in the proposed House of Senate.
If the recommendations are accepted by President Eyadéma, all cantons are expected to be transformed into rural communes which in turn would form the nucleus of prefectures with governing councils elected by its members.
The councils of prefecture would be composed of mayors and their respective prefects or District Chief Executives who would then co-ordinate government services and exercise supervision and control over all actions and decisions by the elected councillors.
The delegates also adopted recommendations which approved regional councillors who must also be elected through direct universal suffrage.
The recommendations also suggested an intensified mass and rural education programme to sensitise the rural people on the new laws to be passed by the government.
The respective councils will have the authority to recruit and appoint their own personnel, including a secretary-general in order to avoid government interference.
The delegates also emphasised the need for government to carry out feasibility studies into the economic potentials of each region and local council area in order to create avenues for the full exploitation of their natural resources.
The delegates called on the State to cancel the internal public debts of all existing local collectives while those they owe to the private sector are taken over in order to allow the new councils to enjoy a flying start.
Professor Kondi Agba, Togolese Minister for Higher Education and Research expressed satisfaction at the atmosphere of serenity and harmony which characterised the deliberations.
Professor Kondi Agba declared: "Once more, the Togolese people have shown that they can come from different political horizons mandated by their diverse political parties to debate and reason together without acrimony." He paid tribute to the development partners of Togo, especially the UNDP and the EU for making the workshop possible.
In a closing address, the Minister for the Interior, Security and Decentralisation, Akila Esso-Boko expressed gratitude to the delegates for the high quality of work they produced.
Acting on behalf of Prime Minister Koffi Sama, the Security Minister said, the outstanding work was a response to the signal by President Eyadéma's political will to establish a more beneficial and democratic system of decentralisation in Togo so that the people can take their destiny into their own hands.
After the closing ceremony, Cornelius Aidam, Vice-President of the Pan-African Patriotic Convergence party led by Edem Kodjo told me in an interview that: "I think this is a starting point. And knowing that this is a long process. I will say that it is better late than never. You know that in many countries in Africa, especially neighbouring countries like Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Benin, they have started this decentralisation process for quite a while now. Togo has been very late".
"But from what we have started now and what we have learned from this workshop is that we have achieved consensus because we have most of the leading political parties, including many ministers of government who have attended the seminar.
Besides, many Togolese political parties have decentralisation in their political programmes.
This will to de-concentrate the central State will mean giving back power to the layman to decide how his community is ruled, and help to improve his community. But what we need most is the political will. I think it is a good start."
Inoussa Nafiou of the opposition party for Democratic Change, PDR, led by Zarifou Ayeva said, "first of all when we talk of decentralisation, it means that we are talking about democracy. There can be no decentralisation without democracy".
According to him "democracy means participation of the people on the ground. It means we must carry democracy to the people. I think this workshop will help us go through this process."
He said that his PDR party fully participated in all the four commissions of the workshop on decentralisation whose conclusions coincided with the PDR party programmes.
So all of us have to come together, the ruling party and the opposition parties, he said.
It is better to begin democracy from the vertical and that is what decentralisation is about", said Professor Zeus Atta-Messan Ajavon, Vice leader of the CPP party. "I think the workshop is a good beginning for democracy in Togo so long as there is no political interference."
According to Stephane Frowein, Head of the European Union delegation to Togo and Ghana, an effective decentralisation programme satisfies durable human development of the local people and serves as a weapon in the battle for poverty alleviation in a developing country.
The Togo government will set up a round table conference of all partners in development to ensure the consolidation of democratisation, the Minister for Interior said.
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