A local governance expert, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae, says the President's power to appoint 30% of members of local assemblies across the country must be scrapped.

He said the laws have only served as huge political impediments to grassroot development at the local level.

Picking up on two local government provisions contained in Article 242 of the 1992 constitution, the Dean of Graduate Studies at the Institute of Local Government Studies wants the appointment of 30% of Local Assembly members by government to be scrapped.

He also wants repealed, the law requiring a candidate for Presiding Member of a Local Assembly to obtain two-thirds majority votes of members.

After more than five months and eight rounds of voting, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) in the Ashanti region has still not elect a presiding member, a position akin to the Speaker of the national parliament.

In the latest round of voting, Michael Adusei Bonsu, backed by the government appointees, polled 65 votes.

He beat Abraham Boadi, sponsored by the pro-NPP Assembly members, who got 59 votes. A third candidate Poku Obeng, got 2 votes.

But Abraham still failed to meet the Article 242 requirement of a two-thirds majority to be elected. Fighting broke out. It is the second time since May that the process has turned violent.

A new date for another vote has been set for Friday, September 30, as political bickering and suspicion frustrate the process.

Joy News’ Ashanti regional correspondent Erastus Asare Donkor who covered the voting process gave a bleak prospect, predicting that “if they are going to go for a re-run, I see no end in sight.”

Discussing the deadlock on the Joy FM Super Morning Show, Dr. Osae noted that the Local Government Law needs serious review. Some of the reviews which have been recommended by the Constitution Review Commission need to be implemented, he said.

For example there is a CRC recommendation which proposes a simple-majority to elect a presiding member instead of the two-thirds majority.

"We must as early as possible operationalise that recommendation”, the Dean advised.

He said the framers of the 1992 constitution believed that two-thirds was needed so that the presiding member could command the respect of his peers.

But the "well-intended" vision has been destroyed by another provision that allows government to choose 30% of the Assembly members. 

This is because the presence of government appointees has triggered a reaction from opposition political parties who now sponsor Assembly members to go into the local government system to counteract the government’s agenda.

According to him, this has practically disabled the constitutional provision that makes the local government system non-partisan.

The provision has been thrown to the dogs as pro-NPP Assembly members slug it out with the pro-NDC members of the KMA who are mainly government appointees.

Dr. Oduro Osae wants the appointing provisions scrapped because although the appointees were intended to be technically-minded men and professionals, that quota is being filled with "all  kinds of people".

“We have to abolish the government appointee system because that process has also been seriously abused,” he said.

Proposing an immediate solution to the KMA feud, the local government expert recommended a power-sharing deal.

Dr. Eric Oduro says the candidate with the second-highest votes should “automatically” be made chairman of the Finance Committee, “another powerful position” in the assembly.

A long-lasting solution however is passing a law to elect District Chief Executives instead of the position being at the behest of the president.

He said the local government law does not reflect the reality which is that the decentralisation system is deeply partisan.

“This business of saying that it is non-partisan in law but on the ground it is partisan has been the bane of our challenges and it is not helping us”, he lamented.