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Dan Botwe, Member of Parliament for Okere and Minister-designate for Local Government and Rural Development, said he was not responsible for the disenfranchisement of some communities in the Oti region in 2020. Parliamentary elections.
Rather, he asked people who wanted to know why the residents of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi and Likpe (SALL) in the Region could not vote in parliamentary elections to direct their inquiries to the Electoral Commission (EC).
“The Ministry has nothing to do with the demarcation of electoral districts,” Botwe said, adding: “This is a purely EC matter.”
The SALLs in Guan district were not given the opportunity to vote in the parliamentary elections as there were problems over whether they should vote in Jasikan or Hohoe. They could only vote in the presidential elections.
Voters expressed their disappointment with the government for not creating an electoral district for residents of Guan district despite its creation two years ago.
Mr. Botwe explained to Parliament’s Nominating Committee, during its background check on Tuesday, that at least the electorate in the named communities had voting centers on their voter identity cards and voted in the presidential elections.
He said the blame attributed to the defunct Ministry of Regional Reorganization, which he headed, for its inability to ensure that the electorate in SALL would vote was due to a deep and unsubstantiated misunderstanding.
“Link it to the vote; the Ministry had nothing to do with who should vote in the presidential elections. That is purely the job of the Election Commission, ”said Mr. Botwe.
He said that complaints about who should belong to which region should be addressed to the Commission of Inquiry that oversaw the referendum of the new regions.
“As soon as a Commission of Inquiry was established, the Ministry did not determine who will or will not be part of the new regions. The Ministry does not determine where the referendum will take place. It is the Commission, ”said Mr Botwe.
He refuted allegations that the new regions were created along tribal lines and said, referring to the multiple ethnic groups found in different parts of Ghana, “anyone stays anywhere.”
Botwe warned people who called themselves supreme chiefs without proper recourse to their jurisdictions to take the repercussions into account.
He called on political parties to be financially strong to reduce the monetization of politics and agreed on the need to build consensus among ministries to address environmental and sanitation issues.
— GNA
