The Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur is asking the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Justice to consider extending the tenure of assembly members across the country within the next few days.<\/p>\n
The Vice President said the move will\u00a0prevent the vacuum that\u00a0will be created due to the Supreme Court ruling<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>which directed the Electoral Commission [EC] to call off the much publicized District Assembly elections.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”ejugZxvjRXAVubQ0EB4Ep5IFAsLvopns”]An aspiring Assembly man, Benjamin Eyi Mensah, represented by lawyer\u00a0Alex Afenyo Markin sued the EC<\/strong><\/span><\/a> for denying him the opportunity to file his nomination despite meeting all conditions to contest\u00a0the election because the EC closed nominations before the maturation of the Constitutional Instrument (CI) 85.<\/p>\n The cancellation of the elections is estimated to have cost the nation about GHC 300 million.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, concerns have been raised over the expiration of the tenure of the current district assembly members in a few days.<\/p>\n The Chairman of the Local Government Committee in Parliament, Dominic Azimbe Azumah in an earlier interview with Citi News<\/strong> appealed to the President to use his powers to establish an interim management committee<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>to manage district assemblies until the District Assembly election crisis is resolved.<\/p>\n The Electoral Commission (EC) has however disclosed that it will soon place before Parliament, a new legislation<\/strong><\/span><\/a> to give legal backing to the re-organization of the District Assembly Elections.<\/p>\n Addressing a conference of Regional Ministers in the Central Region, the Vice President emphasized the need to re-strategize on how best to manage the current circumstances.<\/p>\n He noted that the conference which has in attendance, the Attorney General will brief Regional Ministers \u201con what we intend to do in order to extend the mandate so that there is no gap in the management of the affairs of district assemblies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe spent some money \u2013 money that we don\u2019t have very much to plan this election.\u00a0That money which I\u2019m told is in the region of GHC 310 million is wasted and we now have to provide for additional resources,\u201d he lamented.<\/p>\n Mr. Amissah-Arthur observed that the biggest lesson learnt from the situation is that \u201cnext time, we have to be very diligent in the way we plan things so that we don\u2019t get stopped halfway.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission is requesting an amount of GHC 90 million to organize the districts assembly elections in July.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Efua Idan Osam\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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