7 assemblies in UER fail to elect PMs
Seven out of the 15 Municipal and District Assemblies in the Upper East Region last Thursday failed to elect their Presiding Members (PMs), which was followed after the inauguration and swearing in of the assembly members and the unit committee members on the same day.
They are the Bolgatanga Municipal, Bongo District , Talensi , Nabdam, Bawku West, Builsa South Districts and the Builsa North Municipal, as they failed to meet the two thirds of the members of the assembly as required by the Local Government Act of 1993 (Act 462).
This compelled the Electoral Commission (EC), which conducted the elections, to reschedule it to January 30, to pave the way for further consultation and the subsequent election.
Some of the assembly members who spoke to the Ghanaian Times at separate functions on Monday, expressed dismay about the outcomes of the election of the Presiding Member.
The assemblyman for Zoliba-Tindongo electoral area in the Nabdam district, Mr Charles Taleog Ndanbon, stated that it was very worrisome and disappointing for the failure of most of the assemblies in the region to elect their Presiding Members after two rounds of voting.
Mr Ndanbon, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Yeyenya Mining group, stressed that the failure of the assemblies to elect Presiding Members in time would have grave consequence on the development of the districts.
He said most of the districts in the region were very young and therefore needed to settle down quickly to take decisions to help implement government programmes and policies to accelerate the development of the entire region.
According to him, re-organisation of the election on the second time at another day by the EC would be a financial burden on the assemblies since they would have to spend resources in seeing to the re-scheduled date for the exercise.
Mr Ndanbon, therefore, appealed to his colleague assembly members to bury their political differences and to endeavor to elect their Presiding Members on the re-scheduled date by the EC.
FROM SAMUEL AKAPULE, BOLGATANGA
