Deputy Attorney General wants election of Presiding Members to be based on simple majority.
A Deputy Attorney General, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, has called for the amendment of some provisions of the Local Government Act and Legislations to ensure that the election of a Presiding Member for District Assemblies is based on a simple majority.
The Deputy Attorney General’s call came at the backdrop of the various Assemblies’ inability to elect their Presiding Members after the District Assembly Elections and inauguration in December last year and January this year respectively.
Per the provisions of the Local Government Act of 2016, Act 939, one must obtain a two-thirds majority of the total number of assembly members to be a Presiding Member and many of the Assemblies across the country on countless occasions failed to meet the law.
Mr Kpemka, who is also the Member of Parliament for Tempane Constituency stated that almost all the Assembly Members of the various assemblies were political party affiliates and the situation was not compelling them to have consensus.
According to him, the entrenched positions taken by the Assembly Members in the various Assemblies across the country were making it very difficult for certain Assemblies to get the required two-thirds majority during the election of a Presiding Member.
Mr Kpemka who is also NPP Parliamentary candidate for the 2020 general elections noted that the situation had over the years retarded development in many districts especially the deprived areas and therefore called on the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to as matter of urgency initiate steps to amend some of the provisions of the Act, to allow for a simple majority in the election of a Presiding Members.
The Deputy Attorney General explained that without the presiding member the various development committees of the assembly would be missing and the deliberative role of the assembly members would also be lost, thereby retarding development and deepening the poverty cycle.
Source: GNA