New Districts Suffers Setback

The creation of forty-two new districts by the Atta Mills administration has suffered multiple setbacks as the Legislative Instruments (LIs) establishing it are beset with numerous discrepancies, defects as well as constitutional and legal challenges. The multiple flaws, according to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Subsidiary Legislation and Local Government & Rural Development, included discrepancies in electoral areas and other defects and wrong location of principal offices or district capitals. The rest are electoral areas placed under wrong districts, inconsistencies in instruments and constitutional and legal challenges. The creation of the new districts, political watchers said, was being done in a manner that was surreptitiously intended to compel the Electoral Commission (EC) to create more winnable constituencies for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) ahead of the 2012 general elections. President Mills had laid in Parliament, through the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, about 100 Legislative Instruments (LIs) for the creation of the 42 districts and re-establish the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) whose boundaries had been affected by the creation of the new assemblies. Parliament is expected to consider the report of the joint committee on the LIs today and act on the various recommendations therein. However, a copy of the report in the possession of DAILY GUIDE has strongly recommended the withdrawal of over 70 LIs by the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, which have not been endorsed or the House annuls them.