Special Sitting On EC

Parliament has been compelled to sit today, Saturday, to consider a special Legislative Instrument by the Electoral Commission (EC), creating new electoral areas and also streamlining other electoral areas which have been affected by border disputes. The special 21-day maturity period ends today and therefore parliament will have to urgently consider it to pave way for the district assembly elections which had been scheduled for March 3, 2015. Officials of the Commission will be in parliament to also brief Members on preparations for the district level elections. The ranking member of Local Government Committee, Kwasi Ameyaw Cheremeh, had consistently raised the issue of the election of district assembly members and how the EC was preparing for that. He had requested parliament on several occasions to invite officials of the EC to come and brief parliamentarians on preparations so far made towards the elections. Meanwhile, the rising date for the third meeting of the second session has been moved forward to Monday, December 22 because of the load of business left. It was originally scheduled for Friday, December 19. Parliament will have to consider all the budget estimates for the various ministries, departments and agencies and had been sitting on Mondays since last week. Sittings are also extended beyond the stipulated time of 2:00 pm to enable parliament deal with all outstanding businesses.