[ 2016-09-28 ]

President's power to appoint assemblymen must be scrapped - Expert
A local governance expert, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae,
says the President's power to appoint 30% of
members of local assemblies across the country
must be scrapped.

He said the laws have only served as huge
political impediments to grassroot development at
the local level.

Picking up on two local government provisions
contained in Article 242 of the 1992 constitution,
the Dean of Graduate Studies at the Institute of
Local Government Studies wants the appointment of
30% of Local Assembly members by government to be
scrapped.

He also wants repealed, the law requiring a
candidate for Presiding Member of a Local Assembly
to obtain two-thirds majority votes of members.

After more than five months and eight rounds of
voting, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) in
the Ashanti region has still not elect a presiding
member, a position akin to the Speaker of the
national parliament.

In the latest round of voting, Michael Adusei
Bonsu, backed by the government appointees, polled
65 votes.

He beat Abraham Boadi, sponsored by the pro-NPP
Assembly members, who got 59 votes. A third
candidate Poku Obeng, got 2 votes.

But Abraham still failed to meet the Article 242
requirement of a two-thirds majority to be
elected. Fighting broke out. It is the second time
since May that the process has turned violent.

A new date for another vote has been set for
Friday, September 30, as political bickering and
suspicion frustrate the process.

Joy News’ Ashanti regional correspondent Erastus
Asare Donkor who covered the voting process gave a
bleak prospect, predicting that “if they are
going to go for a re-run, I see no end in
sight.”

Discussing the deadlock on the Joy FM Super
Morning Show, Dr. Osae noted that the Local
Government Law needs serious review. Some of the
reviews which have been recommended by the
Constitution Review Commission need to be
implemented, he said.

For example there is a CRC recommendation which
proposes a simple-majority to elect a presiding
member instead of the two-thirds majority.

"We must as early as possible operationalise that
recommendation”, the Dean advised.

He said the framers of the 1992 constitution
believed that two-thirds was needed so that the
presiding member could command the respect of his
peers.

But the "well-intended" vision has been destroyed
by another provision that allows government to
choose 30% of the Assembly members.

This is because the presence of government
appointees has triggered a reaction from
opposition political parties who now sponsor
Assembly members to go into the local government
system to counteract the government’s agenda.

According to him, this has practically disabled
the constitutional provision that makes the local
government system non-partisan.

The provision has been thrown to the dogs as
pro-NPP Assembly members slug it out with the
pro-NDC members of the KMA who are mainly
government appointees.

Dr. Oduro Osae wants the appointing provisions
scrapped because although the appointees were
intended to be technically-minded men and
professionals, that quota is being filled with
"all kinds of people".

“We have to abolish the government appointee
system because that process has also been
seriously abused,” he said.

Proposing an immediate solution to the KMA feud,
the local government expert recommended a
power-sharing deal.

Dr. Eric Oduro says the candidate with the
second-highest votes should “automatically” be
made chairman of the Finance Committee, “another
powerful position” in the assembly.

A long-lasting solution however is passing a law
to elect District Chief Executives instead of the
position being at the behest of the president.

He said the local government law does not reflect
the reality which is that the decentralisation
system is deeply partisan.

“This business of saying that it is non-partisan
in law but on the ground it is partisan has been
the bane of our challenges and it is not helping
us”, he lamented.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

... go Back