New Regions: We’ll fight you to the end - Minority Leader to Akufo-Addo

The vociferous Minority Leader in Ghana’s Parliament, Hon Haruna Iddrisu is seeking explanation on the constitutional basis for elections to be held in only affected areas in the creation of the Oti Region and others.

“How can the president say allowing the entire region to vote to in a referendum to create new regions be unconstitutional? The entire region is affected and not a section so all in that region have the right to vote and we would fight it constitutionally”.

The minority leader who was speaking as the invited guest during last weekend’s Youth and Women Conferences of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) held at the Pentecost Centre in Gomoa Fetteh at the Central region, said the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) is even deviating from its own manifesto promise which clearly indicated that they were going to create one region and the NDC promised to create five.

“The NPP in their campaign manifesto promised they were going to create an additional region and the NDC promised five”, he observed.

The Tamale South MP did mince words in jabbing the NPP government for what he described as a failed implementation of the Free SHS and other policies.

Background

Processes are currently afoot for the creation of six additional regions in the country following a recommendation by a commission of enquiry which handed its report to the president a few months ago.

The 19-member Commission after holding national consultations urged the government to create the administrative regions to be known as Oti, Ahafo, Brong East, Western North, North East, and Savanna.

A referendum is expected to be held in the beneficiary areas before the creation of the new regions.

But some stakeholders in some of the areas especially from parts of the Volta Region are unhappy with the move.

President Nana Akufo-Addo bantered with some Ghanaians in the US in September 2018 over plans to create the Oti Region.

They questioned why the referendum for the creation of the new regions is limited to only the beneficiary communities.