V/R minister touts MDCEs confirmation rate

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Letsa, has touted the just-ended exercise to confirm the president’s Municipal and District Chief Executive (MDCE) nominees in the region as successful.

He said though some nominees were rejected, 13 were confirmed with quite a number of them receiving hundred per cent endorsement, which implied that the region’s success rate was not too bad.

The processes which saw the conduct of ballots in three Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) in a day and took six days to complete in all 18 MDAs, witnessed the rejection of five of the nominees and the endorsement of the remaining 13.

Speaking at the end of the processes at Anloga in the Keta Municipality, Dr Letsa disclosed that out of the five rejected, three nominees from Adaklu and Akatsi North districts and Ketu North Municipality suffered outright rejection and a report would be compiled and sent to the Presidency for a decision to either withdraw or re-nominate them for a second ballot.

“On the other two nominees from Agotime-Ziope and Anloga districts who failed to poll the mandatory two-thirds of the votes, will have the second ballot conducted in the next few days,” he indicated.

In reaction to the question of revocation of previous government appointees from some MDAs with information on same being communicated to affected appointees on the day of confirmation, Dr Letsa noted that such revocations were necessary to ensure successful processes.

Makafui Woanyah, Regional Chairman of the NPP who was Chairman of the Works Committee at the Keta Municipal Assembly; and Samuel Haligah, Ketu South NPP Constituency Chairman and former Presiding Member of the Ketu South Municipal Assembly had their appointments revoked.

Thursday’s confirmation exercise, which was personally supervised by the regional minister and facilitated by the Electoral Commission (EC) under the watch of security agencies, with Members of Parliament, past and confirmed MDCEs, Regional Executives of NPP, traditional authorities and staff of the MDAs in attendance, was not without drama.

At Ketu South, the revocation affected all 18 government appointees; affected nine of the total 10 at Keta while at Anloga, 11 out of the 13 had their appointments revoked leading to delays in the start of the processes in the coastal assemblies. -GNA