Kumasi assembly members demand presiding member

More than 20 elected assembly members of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) yesterday stormed the offices of the assembly with the intention of locking them up for what they called a deliberate decision by the assembly not to convene a meeting to elect a presiding member.

But the timely intervention of the Coordinating Director, Mr Michael Ataogye, made the assembly members rescind their decision and rather issue a week’s ultimatum to the assembly to ensure that the election was conducted or it would face their wrath.

They later presented a resolution signed by 55 elected assembly members in which they stated their case.

 Background

The assembly had failed in four previous attempts to elect a presiding member. The members had invoked curses which attracted the royal intervention of the Asantehemaa, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem, for the reversal of those curses.

In the last election in February this year, both contestants, Nana Kofi Senya, the Assembly Member for Suame, and Baffour Agyei Kesse, the Chief of Adum, failed to garner the needed two-thirds votes to become the presiding member. Each had 67 votes.

Resolution

The resolution stated that the resolve of the 55 members to draw “your attention to the Model Standing Orders Part 2 clauses 1, 2, and 4 that enjoin you to summon a general assembly meeting to elect a presiding member for the assembly”.

“It is premised on the above provision of the Model Assembly Order that we feel duty bound to request you, as a matter of urgency, to summon the meeting within the next seven working days,” it added.

Mr Ataogye received the petition and assured the petitioners that it would receive the needed attention, an assurance which calmed the nerves of the aggrieved assembly members.