The Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly has still not been able to elect a presiding member (PM). This means that the current Assembly session would be dissolved, with members being able to decide who leads them as PM.
Rex Asanga, the MCE, speaking to Mark Smith on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show today, Tuesday, October 10, 2023, explained that the situation has remained as bad because of the excessive partisanship among assembly members.
“The people have taken entrenched positions. They are not ready to compromise. While the NDC says that look, you have MCE, so in the past we have compromised and given you a Presiding Member, also compromise and give it to us. The NPP also says that this has been the convention, more or less, that the party that is in powershould have the PM.”
“I have talked to both sides and asked that one side should compromise because the role of the PM doesn’t impact negatively on the political parties,” he said.
The MCE wondered why it was difficult for the assembly members to compromise, saying, “This assembly is made up of people who are not riff-raffs. These are people who are highly educated, yet they are not even able to compromise; to take one of them as their leader is very disturbing.”
Mr. Asanga explained that despite his role in speaking to both sides to come to an agreement, he’s always been blamed for the inability of the assembly to elect a PM.
“The other aspect that makes me sad is the fact that they turn around and want to say that the MCE should have done it this way and we would have gotten a PM. The other time I made consultations among them before the meeting, when nobody contested, I was blamed for coming to consult them late. They said I should have consulted them earlier. But I thought this is something that has been going on for the past two years,” he explained.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
