Parliament may be forced to extend sittings during the Easter break to debate issues on the district assembly election, which was cancelled over a constitutional challenge.
[contextly_sidebar id=”rx07922Lrx70xhhOGdglA7bg9T6HrOs2″]Parliament’s special committee on the 2015 district assembly elections recommended this after it submitted its report to the House.
“The committee wishes to recommend to the House that the Rt Hon. Speaker may consider recalling the House during the Easter break to enable the regulation meets the mandatory requirement of 21 sitting days of Parliament for the timely conduct of the election by the Electoral Commission.”
Meanwhile, Parliament was scheduled to rise for the Easter break on March 27, 2015.
The Supreme Court in February, directed the EC to call off the much publicized elections, describing it as “unconstitutional” because the Constitutional Instrument (CI) which gives the election its legal backing was nonexistent.
This was after a fisherman, Benjamin Eyi Mensah, aspiring to become an assembly man, sued the Commission for disallowing him to file his nomination.
The EC has submitted a Constitutional Instrument for the new elections to the Attorney General for advice.
EC wasted GHC317 million on the abortive District Assembly elections
The Electoral Commission (EC) is said to have spent about GHC317 million on the abortive District Assembly elections.
The money spent includes the EC’s normal operational expenditure on the elections.
EC needs GHC 80 million more
The Commission which is asking for additional GH¢80 million now has only GHC10 million left, out of the original budget for the District Assembly elections.
According to the EC, if all the legal and financial issues are addressed, it will be to able to organise the District Assembly elections by July, 2015.
According to the report, the representative of the Ministry of Finance at the meeting assured the [special ] Committee that the Ministry was prepared to make funds available to the Electoral Commission for the conduct of the election as soon as request was made.
Meanwhile, the House is yet to adopt the recommendations of the special committee.
The document has been laid and Parliamentarians are expected to debate it on Thursday.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana