GOVT APPOINTEES OF STMA SWORN-IN (PAGE 13)

SEVENTEEN out of the 20 government appointees of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) have been sworn in.
A Magistrate of the Sekondi Court One, His Worship, Kwame Polly, swore them at an extra ordinary meeting of the assembly in Sekondi.
The three remaining appointees who did not turn up for the ceremony would be sworn in at the assembly’s next meeting.
However, the 64-member assembly could not elect its presiding member as required by law, as a result of a wireless message sent to the assembly by the ministry of local government and rural development with the directive that the election of presiding members by the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies should be suspended until further notice.
As a result of this directive, the assembly could not do any other business, since without a presiding member, the assembly could not continue with any business as demanded by the standing orders of the assembly.
Speaking before the swearing-in, the STMA Coordinating Director, Mr Clement Dandori, told the new members of the assembly that the house over the years had worked together as a family dedicated to the overriding objective of doing what was good for the people of the metropolis.
He therefore urged them to be mindful of the constitutional provision that barred the assemblies from turning themselves into partisan political entities.
He acknowledged the honour done the people of Sekondi-Takoradi by the President in his State of the Nation address for their remarkable work at the recent clean-up exercise.
Mr Dandori reassured the government that the people of Sekondi-Takoradi as represented by their elected members in the assembly, were firmly committed to helping to successfully deliver on the manifesto of his party to improve the living standards of the people,
“Members will acknowledge the fact that the clean-up exercise brought to light the enormity of the sanitation problems in our environment. Even as I address you, there are a few areas that the waste management department and its collaborators, Zoomlion Ghana Limited, are yet to clean up heaps of refuse,” he said.
He noted that as an emerging oil city in Africa, Sekondi-Takoradi would need to do more to improve upon its sanitation to make the city investor friendly to open up job avenues for the youth.
“In this regard, while waiting eagerly for the appointment and election of the metropolitan chief executive and the presiding member, l wish to urge all sub-metro, district councils to immediately get to work and draw up strategic plans for cleaning their electoral areas and sustaining the exercise,” he urged them.