Dr Ayine
Former Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Dr. Dominic Ayine, has raised concerns over the unavailability of copies of the Constitutional Instrument (C.I) 109 on the referendum for new regions to Members of Parliament (MPs).
“The unavailability of the C.I is making it difficult for Members of Parliament to make up their minds as to whether to support the decision to create new regions or not.
“I think it raises concern because it is an important constitutional instrument which aims at the creation of new regions and MPs do not have copies of the document.
“When Members of Parliament do not have the full complement of information, how can they make up their minds? I think leadership must make the instrument available us,” Dr Ayine quizzed.
Parliament’s Special Budget Committee also raised concerns with the level of publicity associated with the upcoming referendum on the creation of new regions at a meeting between the committee and the Electoral Commission (EC).
Frimpong Addo, the Deputy Ranking Member of the Committee, who made the observation, was however quick to add that “the EC is putting resources together to embark on intensive publicity ahead of the referendum.
“We had a couple of concerns with publicity, and they assured us they are marshaling resources to embark on publicity for ten days and once they have assured us, we should take them by their word and move on,” he noted.
The referendum for the carving out of the new regions is slated for December 27 and processes are currently underway for creation of six additional regions following a recommendation by a commission of inquiry which has submitted its report to the president recently.
The 19-member commission after holding nationwide consultations advised the government to create administrative regions to be known as Oti, Ahafo, Brong East, Western North, North East, and Savanna.
A referendum is expected to be held in the selected areas before the new regions are created but some stakeholders in some of the areas especially from parts of the Volta Region are opposed to the move and the government and the Electoral Commission have already been slapped with two different suits over the issue. –citinewsroom.com
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