Kumasi mayor given 7-day ultimatum over assembly elections

The mayor of Kumasi, Kojo Bonsu, has been issued a 7-working day deadline by some assembly members to reorganize a meeting to elect a Presiding Member or face their wrath.

The elected members of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) – numbering about 55 – condemned the Chief Executive, Mr Bonsu, for deliberately ignoring their series of calls on him to summon a General Assembly meeting to elect a Presiding Member, after their last vote in January 2016.

The assembly members claim that it is inappropriate for them to wait for more than three months without calling for another election to elect a Presiding Member to steer the affairs of the Assembly, after their attempt to choose one failed three months ago.

“As an assembly member, I’m unable to work effectively because the unit committee members have not been sworn in due to the absence of Presiding Member,” said William Kwabena Boateng, assembly member for Ayigya Ahenbronum.

“We need to get a Presiding Member elected as soon as possible to facilitate development.”

Mr Boateng stated again that “even if we vote and no one gets the expected number to become the PM, we are not supposed to sit for three to four months without calling another election. All this is a ploy by the mayor to sidelined assembly members”.

The assembly member for Afful Nkwanta, Lawrence Adu, also accused the mayor of deliberately refusing to set a date for election of a PM because the absence of a PM gives the mayor the room to operate beyond his duties

“The stage that we’ve gotten [to] now is very pathetic. Even our committed allowance has not been paid for the past four months,” he added.

The assembly members presented their resolution to the KMA Coordinating Director to be forwarded to the mayor.

The KMA Coordinating Director, Michael Atta Ogye, received the resolution by the assembly members and assured them that their request will be adhered to.

“Consultations will soon be done and a meeting for us to elect a presiding member will certainly be called in due course”.

He pleaded with the assembly members to collectively deal with issues confronting them and not people’s personality.

The seven working days start from Wednesday, 20th April and it will elapse on Thursday, 28th April 2016.