Hajia Alima welcomes amended Local Governance Bill

The Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama, has expressed optimism that the passage of the Local Governance Amendment Bill will help correct a flaw in the original Bill.

Parliament passed the Local Governance Amendment bill this week which restores the President’s discretion to revoke the appointments of the 30 percent government assigns on various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.

The original bill, passed in December 2016, made the appointment of the 30 percent of state appointed Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies untenable.

Hajia Mahama spoke to Citi News about the piece of legislation which she said was passed with a consensus for Minority and Majority members.

“This new local government act that was accented to on 20th December 2016, it was passed when everybody was busy with elections; it took away the discretion of the President to revoke appointments. So we have come to Parliament to restore that discretionary power of the President to revoke appointees of District Assemblies.”

“The appointed members can be described as the President’s appointees and he should have the discretion to revoke the appointments, so that is what we have done.”

“Both Minority and Majority constituted the committee and they came to a consensus that the President appoints and should have the discretion to revoke the appointment passed,” she said