News:
November 9, 2015
The Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Parliament is considering dragging the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Alhaji Collins Dauda, to court for breaching the Model Standing Orders of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
Such a move, they noted, would be initiated if Collins Dauda does not change his mind for amending the Standing Orders of the MMDA after they hauled him before Parliament over his actions.
Alhaji Collins Dauda by a circular purports to amend Order 10 (7) of the Model Standing Orders of the MMDAs to enable an Assembly to elect one of its members to preside over the Assembly if the members are unable to elect a Presiding Member.
However, the Minority at a press conference on Monday which was addressed by the deputy Ranking of the Committee on Local Government, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, described the move as illegal and unconstitutional.
According to him, Article 244 of the 1992 Constitution prescribes the process for an Assembly to follow in electing one of its members to preside over the Assemble if the members are unable to elect a Presiding Member.
Article 244 states that (1) “The District Assembly shall have a Presiding Member who shall be elected by the Assembly from among its members. (2) “The Presiding Member shall be elected by at least two-thirds majority of all the members of the Assembly. (3) The Presiding Member shall (a) preside over the meetings of the Assembly (b) Perform such other functions as may be prescribed by law.
The above mentioned provision, the Minority said, is reaffirmed by Section 17 of the Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462) sub-section (5) which states that “the Presiding Member shall convene and preside over all meetings of the Assembly and perform such other functions as may be prescribe by law.
“In our view, the Minister is engaging himself in an unconstitutional and illegal venture by circumventing the constitutional requirement of two-thirds of all the members of an Assembly to elect a Presiding Member. Indeed, the so-called amendment by the Minister to the Standing Orders of the assemblies to have a member elected to preside before the election of a substantive presiding member to approve of the budget of the assemblies seeks to undermine and subvert the letter and spirit of Article 244 (2) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.”
“Clearly, the purported amendment by the Minister is inconsistent with Article 244 (2) of the Constitution which is the supreme law of the country, and to the extent of the inconsistency, it must be deemed to be of no effect, pursuant to Article 1 (2) of the Constitution,” noted Mr. Amoako-Atta who doubles as the MP for Attiwa West.