Three traditional areas, out of the four in the Ketu- North District of the Volta Region, have petitioned the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development(MLGRD) to re-examine the mode of redemarcating new electoral areas in order not to endanger the prevailing peace in the district.
The three, Dzodze, Afife and Penyi traditional councils questioned the procedure used for the allocation of 10 electoral areas out of the 13 created in the district to Wheta Area Council alone, with two to Dzodze Urban Council, one to Afife Area Council, but none to the Penyi Area Council.
In a petition jointly signed by the Fiaga of the Afife Traditional Area, Torgbuiga Adrakpanya V, Torgbui Dadzii IV of Penyi and Torgbui Bese III of Dzodze, the chiefs appealed to the minister, as a matter of urgency, to withdraw the bill on these new demarcations from Parliament.
The petition also appealed to Parliament, as a matter of necessity to intervene and put on hold any discussion relating to the issues on the floor of the House until justice had been done.
“ Based on the above reasons, we appeal that the new allocations be terminated until the right procedure is followed. For peace and tranquility to prevail, we propose that the allocations take the following form: Dzodze Urban Council -5; Afife Area Council — 3, Penyi Area Council — 3 , Wheta Area Council — 2”, the petition stated.
The petition threatened that the people might not take part in the forthcoming district assembly and subsequent elections if the issue was not resolved.
The issue could generate misunderstanding or chaos among the four traditional areas as far as the demarcation process was concerned, the petition stated.
“Let us not undermine the local government system that we have embraced for all this while. Let it not appear as if there are some groups of people who want to subvert the will of the people of Ketu North as a district,” it further stated.
The petition challenged the criteria used for allocating electoral areas to various traditional areas and quoted the 2008 projections on population of the townships as Dzodze-22,038; Wheta Afife-4,427; and Penyi-6,281.
It questioned whether there was the need for a forensic expert to tell that an urban council deserved more electoral areas than an area council in times of new demarcations and questioned whether the current birth rate of Wheta was higher than the rest of the three area and urban councils over the years.
The petitioned also questioned whether there had been no population growth at Penyi over the years.
In a similar vein, another petition to the MLGRD, jointly signed by Messrs Cletus Awuvey, Peter Gavor and Justine Tegbega in the same district, condemned the egocentric behaviour of some politicians and warned that the peace that had prevailed in the Ketu North District would be violated if few individuals used state apparatus to bully the majority.
“ It is becoming increasingly clear that the NDC has continuously taken things in the Volta Region for granted”, the statement said, adding “ clearly some of the politicians in the region are biting the finger that feeds them”.
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