The President’s nominee for the La-Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly, Solomon Kotey-Nikoi, on Tuesday received an overwhelming endorsement from all the 15 Assembly members, to become the new Municipal Chief Executive.
His nomination and subsequent election as the Municipal Chief Executive followed the death of the incumbent, the late Gladys Naa Tsotsoo Mann-Dedey, early this year after battling a protracted illness.
At an extraordinary meeting convened at the forecourt of the Assembly, which was temporarily designated as the Assembly Hall, Mr Kotey-Nikoi clinched a first round victory when all the Assembly members voted for him without a dissenting voice.
Just as the Returning Officer, Kofi Oppong finished counting the ballots which was keenly being observed, and as soon as the result was declared, Mr Kotey-Nokoi’s well-wishers spontaneously burst into merry-making; waving white calico arm-bands into the air in celebration of the victory.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Ishmael Ashitey, duly swore Mr Kotey-Nikoi into office immediately.
Earlier in a speech before the voting, Mr Ashitey appealed to the Assembly members to vote massively for the President’s nominee to clinch the two-thirds majority as required by law before a Municipal Chief Executive could take office.
He said it was imperative to get the approval from the Assembly members to pave way for the smooth administration of the Municipal Assembly which had hitherto been challenged in the absence of the active Municipal Chief Executive.
Mr Ashitey, said although he had acted for some time now, other demanding issues in the region denied the Assembly of his full attention, creating an administrative gap.
He, therefore, asked the Assembly members to be prudent, having seen the vacuum in the administrative structure, by overwhelming endorsing the President’s nominee to immediately take charge of the Assembly.
Mr Ashitey said when the hurdle of the Chief Executive was cleared, the outcome of the upcoming District-Level Elections would determine the local governance structure of the Assembly to steer the affairs of the Assembly for accelerated development.
In his victory speech, Mr Kotey-Nikoi thanked the Assembly members for overwhelmingly endorsing his nomination and promised to work with them to ensure that challenges in the area of sanitation, security, revenue mobilisation and social cohesion agenda were dealt with to become a thing of the past.
He said one of his key policy directions would be to decentralise the administrative structure of the Assembly to embrace grass root participation, by empowering both the Zonal and Unit Committees to become an integral part of the Assembly.
Present at the meeting were the former Municipal Chief Executive, Rita Naa Odoley Sowah, the former Member of Parliament, Nii Amasa Namoale and the current Member of Parliament for La Dadekotopon Constituency Vincent Odotei Sowah.
BY LAWRENCE MARKWEI
