Accra, Jan 29, GNA - Daasebre Emeritus Professor Oti Boateng, Omanhene of New Juaben Traditional Area, on Thursday said featuring the 230 constituencies in this year's general election as the Electoral Commission (EC) had recommended was "most appropriate and within the spirit of the Constitution".
In a paper he sent to the Ghana News Agency on: "The Current Electoral Debate - Population Imperatives and Other Considerations", Daasebre Oti Boateng said when the thirty newly created constituencies were added to the existing 200 for the elections great confusion and major complications of the electoral process would be avoided.
He said the constitutional framers did not intend to create confusion with Article 47 but it was rather done "to ensure fair representation and also to ensure that the distribution of constituencies throughout the country and the number of voters contained in them are so carefully balanced that the value of each vote carries almost equal weight everywhere".
Since the EC announced on Christmas Eve that 30 additional constituencies were to be created for this year's election there has been a high-pitched debate on the issue.
Daasebre Oti Boateng, one time the Government Statistician, said "there are scholars who hold the view that newly created constituencies should not feature in the 2004 General Eelection but rather feature in the 2008 elections.
"There are still others who are of the opinion that election of candidates to represent the 30 newly created constituencies in Parliament should take place on 7th January 2005, when the alterations shall come into effect or soon thereafter".
He said, "the 2008 alternative is not feasible while 7th January or soon thereafter option is not practicable."
Daasebre Oti Boateng said when the proposed alternative of featuring the 30 additional constituencies in 2008 election instead of 2004 was put to feasibility test it could not stand because the population distribution would have changed considerably by 2008 that the basis for the alteration, derived from the 2000 population census would no longer be valid for application.
In 2008, five million people would have been added to the 2000 base year population of Ghana through natural increase alone. There would also be various population shifts within the country due to migration, new industrial locations and other push-pull factors within the economy.
Daasebre Oti Boateng said, "the duality of the population changes will create a distributional imbalance in the national population profile by the year 2008/9 which cannot be corrected using the then outdated 2000 population census figures".
The population quota for year 2005 on the basis of 230 constituencies and the projected growth rate of 2.7 per cent will be around 94,000 inhabitants per constituency, which is almost the same as the year 2000 population quota.
On the other hand, the population quota for 2005 on the basis of maintaining the 200 constituencies would be 108,000 creating a significant distributional imbalance in the national population profile. He said in that case the quota disparity would result in unfair representation in Parliament and a 230 member Parliament in January 2005 would correct the disparity.
Daasebre Oti Boateng said: "If the additional 30 constituencies are not featured in 2004 general election ...we are going to create a situation where over 2.8 million Ghanaians ...will be under-represented in the next Parliament".
He said that situation of keeping "large portions of our population under represented in Parliament is totally against the egalitarian principle of fair representation so well embedded in the Constitution".
Daasebre Oti Boateng said absurdities, confusion and wasteful expenditure would come to the fore if elections were held for the affected 30 constituencies on 7th January 2005 or soon thereafter because a ridiculous situation would arise where 30 members of Parliament would have no seats.
He said if by the strict interpretation of the letter of the Constitution "we wait till 7th January 2005, the date the alteration of the constituencies becomes effective, it will mean that 60 new parliamentary seats will automatically become vacant at that effective date.
"This will lead to a scenario where sixty fresh elections must be held for all the 60 affected constituencies".
Daasebre Oti Boateng said "the holding of 60 constituencies elections after 7th January will be far more expensive than when they are held during the 2004 election.
"Taking advantage of the economies of scale infused by the general election can bring down the cost significantly and that means conducting the general election simultaneously in 230 constituencies in 2004 in preparation for the 7th January 2005 effective date", he said.
