There was confusion at the Wa Municipal Assembly Hall during the confirmation of President Nana Akufo-Addo’s nominee, Issahaku Tahiru Moomin, as Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) on Thursday.
The confusion came after the counting of the ballots of which the nominee polled 29 instead of the 30 votes required for his confirmation.
But, after careful scrutiny of a vote that was rejected, the Electoral Commission (EC) made a U-turn and declared it as a valid vote increasing the votes of the nominee to 30, thus, confirming him for another four-year tenure at the Assembly.
Presiding Officer of the EC, Adam Iddrisu Thirdman, lifting the ballot paper, said: “A choice had not been made about this particular ballot, so it is, therefore, rejected ballot. So one rejected ballot.”
This brought about chaos leading to the arrest of two persons by the police as one was alleged to have slapped one of the Assembly members.
However, the Presiding Officer later indicated that “the yes votes were 30, representing 66.7 %, the no votes were 15, representing 33.3%, rejected ballots 0.
“And by this results, the president’s nominee in the person of Issahaku Moomin Tahiru is confirmed and declared as the honourable member for the assembly,” he announced.
The Wa Municipal Electoral Officer, Bernard Alaglo, further explained why the ballot was not rejected.
“There was no mark made at the no column, if a mark was made at the no column at the same time yes column, then it would have been a complete rejected ballot,” he explained.
On his part, Mr Tahiru said his doors are opened to all “who feel that my first tenure has not been so much good for them, to come in and I am ready to improve upon what happened in the previous period to bring everybody on board.”
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