Edward Doe Adjaho
The Council of State has given its advice on the new Constitutional (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which seeks to change the election date from December 7 to November 7 six days after its first reading in parliament and referral to it as required by the Constitution.
Article 291 of the Constitution requires the Council of State to offer its advice on such a constitutional amendment within 30 days but it took just six days to do that probably because of the urgency of the Bill.
The speaker of parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho who announced this in parliament yesterday said with the advice of the Council of State now available, the Bill together with the advice of the Council of State has now been referred to the parliamentary committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for its consideration and report back to the plenary.
Parliament does not know when the Committee will finish its work since it is at a stage where thorough work would have to be done before plenary discusses it and probably approves of it.
A member of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamnetary Affairs, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw who is also New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Asuogyaman told DAILY GUIDE that now that the Bill has been referred to their committee, the committee will engage all stakeholders to ensure that satisfactory report is presented for approval.
According to Mr. Osei-Ameyaw, it is possible that the committee will travel to all the 10 regions to engage with all stakeholders since the bill is on a constitutional amendment.
“We will need sufficient time to engage with all the relevant stakeholders for a thorough work since the bill does not only border on an amendment to the constitution but also borders on the vexed issue of a date for the general elections which will eventually determine leadership for the nation,” he said adding that in case of anything, the constitution has already set aside December 7 for the general elections.
He said work of the committee will not in any way be affected by the case on the sanctity of the voters’ register at the Supreme Court even though it is a direct function of the elections.
He told DAILY GUIDE that the whole hullaballoo on the voters’ register would have been resolved if the Electoral Commission had compiled a new register.
“Compiling a new register will eliminate the hassle of deleting the names of all dead people from the register and also deleting the names of voters who registered with NHIS cards and going through another process of re-registering them,” Mr Osei-Ameyaw said stressing that the EC could have done a fresh registration with the CI 91 which will in turn revoke the CI 72.
“If the EC is determined to do the cleaning of the voters’ register as demanded by the court, then it ought to adequately resource all assembly members and unit committees members who have already been directed by the EC to help in cleaning the register so that the cleaning will be effective and acceptable,” he said
By Thomas Fosu Jnr