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Agnès Anamoo, candidate for the general management of the district for Nabdam
The cellphones of members of the Nabdam district assembly have been extremely busy since the start of Sunday over conversations about the serious fallout from the confirmation exercise held last Thursday for the chief executive candidate. of the District (DCE), Agnes Anamoo.
Starr News learns that the candidate’s confirmation is invalid and that Upper East Regional Minister Stephen Yakubu, who allegedly spearheaded the “flawed” confirmation process, is desperately lobbying for the damage to be done. repaired before the expiration of the deadline.
The candidate was sworn in for a second term Thursday after members of the assembly declared “unanimously” a “popular acclamation” for her without voting. But many observers have called the exercise illegal because it violated Law 936 on local governance and the assembly rulebook.
“The process of confirming a head of the district executive is prescribed by law. Section 20 (1) of the Local Governance Act 936, 2016 states that there will be a district general manager for each district appointed by the president with the prior approval of at least two-thirds of the members of the ‘district assembly attend and vote at the assembly’.
“In addition, Article 15 (1, 2, 3) of the MMDAS Model Bylaw states that: A,” The President may appoint a person for approval by the Assembly to be appointed as the District Chief Executive. ” . Two, “The Election Commission shall, within twenty-one days of notification by the President to the Secretary of the Assembly of the nomination, proceed to a ballot on the candidate.” Third, “the vote will be by secret ballot”. This clearly shows that there must be a vote and a certain threshold reached. So it is not left to the discretion of the assemblies, ”commented one of the observers in an SMS.
Another observer said: “You have to vote. What they did there was simply unnecessary, a waste of precious time for assembly members, traditional leaders, politicians, etc. It was just a mess. We don’t know why they did all of this. But before they did all that, the regional minister had revoked the appointments of some of the people appointed to pave the way for this illegality.
The regional minister, after realizing the blunder, reportedly summoned the presiding member, Sampana Zure Abass, to the residence (the state residence of the regional minister) on Saturday and urged him to summon the members of the district assembly for another confirmation exercise today― today being the last day of the candidate’s ten-day statutory grace period after initially failing to obtain the required two-thirds majority.
There is intense pressure from prominent figures through repeated phone calls on the presiding member and some members of the assembly to meet in the conference hall of the Nabdam district assembly. before noon and are now following the process that was risky and unanimously ignored last week. Some strongly believe that participating in another confirmation exercise on a Sunday (a non-working day) is as inappropriate as the same action that brought the district into the current mess was wrong. It is still unclear whether the pressured president and members of the assembly will give in to the increasing pressure.
The head of the electoral commission, the director of the district coordination speak
The members of the Assembly rejected the candidate in the first confirmation exercise on Thursday, September 30, 2021. She needed at least 13 of the 19 votes cast but collected 12― representing 63.15%. She needed 66.67% to reach the threshold.
Some members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) accused the party’s regional chairman for the Upper East, Anthony Namoo, and the presiding member who is a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of organizing the rejection suffered by the candidate. The regional president and the presiding member both refuted the allegations and reportedly urged members of the assembly to endorse the candidate at the confirmation meeting that followed.
When the assembly reconvened last week for the second confirmation exercise, an unexpected letter signed by the regional minister revoking the appointment of two assembly members, Francis Wongnab and Moses Dee―, took center stage. from the scene.
The two government appointees, after receiving their dismissal letters, were escorted out of the crowded room by state security officers. The reason for the dismissal was not stated in the letter, but observers believe the regional minister made the decision to pave the way for the candidate’s confirmation. The letter was sent in copy to the chief executive of the district of Nabdam and to the Minister of Local Administration, Decentralization and Rural Development.
It is said that even the regional president of the party was not aware that the regional minister had written this letter and that he had accompanied her to the event. And it is believed that it was well planned because right after the two men were ordered to leave the room, two people, dressed for the occasion, were sworn in as people appointed by the government to replace. those which were indicated by the exit in the room.
Despite the dismissal of the two appointees, a proposal for “popular acclamation” was voiced by a member of the assembly and it became a choir, an imposed choir, someone said. The vote was bypassed. And an oath was taken to the candidate. One observer said that the applause that greeted the process was low and the glee that followed the exercise was like a funeral song.
“Our appointments were revoked and we were replaced by two others. The place was packed. The soldiers were everywhere. And the police asked me to leave. We have been taken out. There has been no previous communication that our appointments have been revoked and no reason has been given. We were just going out like thieves who had been caught.
“They even announced that if you weren’t invited to the meeting, you shouldn’t come in, you should leave the room. It was therefore not opened to the public. I represented the district on the Board of Directors of the Land Commission. It was the same way that I was removed from the board without notice. It happened two months ago, ”Wongnab told Starr News on Friday.
The Upper East regional director of the Election Commission (EC), William Obeng Adarkwa, said the confirmation exercise allegedly requested by the regional minister was not brought to his attention. Phone calls made by Starr News to the regional minister on Sunday about this development went unanswered.
“I’m also calling someone to find out what went wrong. I’m also calling someone to get the real picture. When I get the message I’ll call you back, ”Nabdam District Coordination Director Jimba Mohammed Ibrahim said when Starr News contacted him about the matter on Sunday.
Observers say the NPP regional chairman as an attorney and the presiding member as a veteran assembly member could have drawn the assembly’s attention to Thursday’s wrongdoing, but it was good that they are silent because, as they had been accused last month of working against the candidate, they would have been the subject of another shower of accusations if they had righted the wrong in the event and a subsequent secret ballot had seen the candidate rejected.
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