The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has proposed the annulment of the 2020 parliamentary elections in the Buem constituency to allow for fresh polls.
This, he says, is to ensure that the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi (SALL) exercise their right to vote, so they are represented in the 8th Parliament.
The people of SALL did not vote in the parliamentary elections but participated in the presidential polls with the expected creation of the Guan constituency.
Answering questions in Parliament on Wednesday, the Attorney General indicated that the constitutional instrument needed to create the new Guan constituency is with the Electoral Commission and will be laid in the house soon.
“It is not in doubt that the MP for Buem does not represent the people of SALL even though the people have been placed there. Indeed, the reason why we have to annul the 2020 Buem parliamentary elections is to ensure that the SALL areas are given the right representation now.”
“As far as I am concerned, there is no law that places SALL under the Buem Constituency. It is only C.I 128 that places SALL under the Buem Constituency. There is no other law at all. So the way to go if we indeed want to achieve representation of the SALL people in the lifetime of the Parliament is to ensure that proper areas that have been allocated in the proper constituencies that have been created will be ordering a proper election to include the people of SALL in the Buem Constituency. And we first have to allow that.”
I see it as a joke – Kofi Adams
But MP for Buem, Kofi Adams, believes this proposal by the Attorney General is a mark of the government’s incompetence in handling the matter.
“This clearly shows that we have an incompetent government that was bestowed on us. This is not the first time we have had to amend our constituency boundaries. In each of those cases, we have never seen this level of incompetence. But this shows that the government has been incompetent in handling our local government creation of the constituency. But for what he said, I see it as a joke. He was evasive with the real issues that came from his answers. But I am ready for any elections in Buem.”