Parliament clears way for 2015 district assembly elections
Parliament has unanimously approved the District Electoral Areas and Designation of Units Instrument, 2014 (C.I 85), thereby paving the way for the holding of next year's district assembly elections.
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The C.I seeks to demarcate electoral boundaries for the elections in 2015. In all, 6,156 electoral areas have been created.
The breakdown
The Upper East and Upper West Regions have a total of 293 electoral areas while the Greater Accra Region has 354.
- Western Region - 544
- Central Region - 572
- Volta Region - 661
- Northern Region - 705
- Brong Ahafo – 766
- Eastern Region - 850
- Ashanti Region - 1,058
Views
Members from both sides of the House approved the CI but also chided the Electoral Commission for delaying in presenting it to the House.
The Minority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu described the EC's delay as "unpardonable."
He agreed with the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation , which presented a report on the CI to the House, that the CI 85 would eliminate challenges and inconsistences associated with the electoral areas in LI 1993, but argued that Parliament had not had enough time to scrutinize it.
He said Parliament was even compelled to sit on a Saturday just to ensure that it met the constitutional requirement that a CI is laid before the House for 21 sitting days before it is approved.
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"The E.C’s approach is lawless," he said.
"Mr. Speaker we must do the right thing, we must send a strong signal to the EC that they cannot operate in that lawless manner. We saw this as way back as September and asked the EC Chairman to come with a new CI, but as stiff as he his, he refused”, he said.
The EC, he said, must be made aware of the fact that their approach was wrong and should not be allowed to continue along that path, he insisted.
The member for Wa West, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chereh, agreed largely with the Minority Leader, but said his use of the word "lawless" to describe the inaction or failure of the EC was unacceptable.
Instead of using the choicest obscenities to describe the EC and its leadership, he said, the House should rather ascertain why there was a delay in bringing the CI to the House.
Barton-Odro agrees
The First Deputy Speaker, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, who presided over proceedings at the time, was also of the view that the EC should have brought the CI to the House earlier.
"I agree that the EC must be cautioned to veer off that kind of culture, because even though we want the processes to go on, Parliament should not be stampeded”.