Govt Aborts Plans To Scrap Ketu South Municipality

Under intense pressure from angry residents of the Ketu South constituency, the Mills administration has aborted its earlier plans to scrap the creation of a new municipality out of the existing Ketu South District of the Volta region of Ghana. Angry residents of the constituency took to the streets last week in protest at news that of the new Legislative Instruments laid recently in Parliament for approval, the Ketu South area was excluded. Led by outraged National Democratic Congress (NDC) local executives and some opinion leaders in the area, the protesters later presented a petition to the Presidency here in Accra, demanding that the government kept to last year's ministerial announcement which promised the people of Ketu South a new municipality. Days after the protests, and with more demonstrations looming later this week, the government on Tuesday brought to Parliament a new Legislative Instrument (LI 2075), which seeks to elevate the whole of the Ketu South District to a Municipal Status. A Deputy Local Government Minister, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, laid the new LI in the House for lawmakers to begin the process of giving legal backing to the idea of creating a Municipal Assembly for the people of Ketu South Constituency. The Deputy Minister also laid another LI, which seeks to create a new district for the people of Tolon in the Northern region of the country. The Speaker of Parliament, Justice Joyce Bamford Addo, who presided, subsequently referred the two LIs to the Joint Committee on Local Government and Subsidiary Legislation for consideration and report.