Buem MP Kofi Adam has refuted suggestions by the government that the SALL traditional areas that now form part of the Guan district were originally under the Jasikan District.
According to him, Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lipke and Lolobi (SALL) traditional areas were originally part of the Hohoe Municipality before the creation of the Oti Region and the Guan district.
“All the 13 elected Assembly Members in the SALL zone, or the Guan as it is called now, never participated in the Jasikian District Assembly Activities. They were elected in December 2019, they did not participate in the inauguration in Jasikian in 2019 or 2020. It was only recently in 2021 that they had an inauguration at Lipke.
“… so when they sit down and talk as if Lolobi, Lipke, Akpafu and Santrokofi were really under Jasikan, that is another falsehood,” the member of parliament said in a Joy News interview monitored by GhanaWeb.
Adams added that the proposed solution by the Attorney General that the government should annul L.I. 2416 which formed the Guan district will only result in the reduction of districts in the Oti Region.
“So, Oti as a region will move from 9 districts to 8. If the government intentionally wanted to develop structures and intensive local governance, you would not be advising and working towards reducing the number of districts from 9 to 8, that has never happened to any region,” he said.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Godfred Dame has said that there should be fresh elections in the Buem Constituency to give the people of SALL the right representation in the Parliament of Ghana.
“The way to go if we want to achieve representation of the SALL areas in the lifetime of this Parliament is to ensure that proper areas that have been allocated within proper constituencies duly created by law are given their right to vote in proper elections properly conducted to duly elect Members of Parliament. Thus, a proper election ought to be conducted to elect a Member of Parliament to represent all of the people in the Buem Constituency, as mandated by C. I. 128,” he said.
Background
The Guan District made up of Santrofi, Akpafu, Lipke and Lolobi (SALL) in the Oti Region, was created following the Legislative Instrument laid in Parliament by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in 2019.
The district was previously part of the Hohoe Municipal, District Electoral Areas and Designation of Units Instrument, 2014 CI 85. However, the area was placed in the Oti Region in the Referendum (Creation of New Regions) Regulations 2018, CI 109 of November 30, 2018 as recommended by the Commission of Inquiry into the creation of the six new regions.
Consequently, Guan was made part of the Oti Region in the Oti Region Instrument 2019 CI 112 on February 2019. It was also included in the Jasikan District in the Oti Region as provided in the District Electoral Areas and Designation of Unit Assemblies.
However, the people of SALL did not partake in the December 7, 2020, parliamentary election but only voted in the presidential election. This followed an announcement by the EC on December 6, 2020. The disenfranchisement has so far triggered many reactions with many concerned Ghanaians calling for these to be addressed ahead of the 2024 general election.
ghanaweb.com