News:
February 4, 2021
Former Ranking member for Local Government and Rural Development Committee, in the Seventh Parliament, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye has said President Nana Akufo-Addo is violating Article 89 clause 1C of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.
According to him the said Article spells out how Council of State members should be constituted, by selecting two members from each Assembly to form the Electoral College to elect the Regional Council of State members.
At a media briefing on Thursday, February 4, 2021 before the House started sitting, he noted that the former Chief of Defense Staff and former IGP and some few others are to be voted for before they could be part of the Council of State members.
“President Nana Akufo-Addo is using his acting MMDCEs and Presiding members to vote to elect the Members of the Council of State as the two have constituted themselves into electoral colleges. We are not going to allow this to happen. Two years ago we had the cause to complain of the way the thirty person appointees were constituted”.
Also if we are going to have people who would constitute the Council of State being from the NPP stock, they would not give any good advice to the president. “We are not asleep and we would not sleep, we would monitor this elections and we shall not allow them flout the laws and we ask the Assemblies to call for a meeting”.
He also hinted that they would advice themselves by going to court to annul the process if it is not properly done.
Mr. Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye stressed that the Minority and the immediate past members on the Local Government Committee would not sit unconcerned to allow President Akufo-Addo to breach the law of Ghana with respect to Article 89 clause 1C on how to elect members to form Counsel of State.
Again, for the past four years the Nana Addo government has made local governance “impotent”. This government is trying to erode the respect that is supposed to be given the local governance institution in Ghana, he added.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com