#GhVetting: I didn’t work to disenfranchise Hohoe residents – Godfred Dame
Attorney General and Justice Minister-designate, Godfred Yeboah Dame have distanced himself from the inability of some voters in Hohoe in the Volta Region to partake in the 2020 general elections.
It would be recalled that during the December polls, eligible voters within areas in the newly created district; Godfred Yeboah Damenamely Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe, and Lolobi (SALL) were only allowed to take part in the presidential election but could not vote in the parliamentary election because a constituency had not been created for them.
The residents took the matter to court demanding the enforcement of their fundamental human rights to vote.
After a Ho High Court granted an interim injunction restraining the Electoral Commission from gazetting the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) John Peter Amewu as the Member of Parliament (MP) for elect for Hohoe, Godfred Dame who at the time was the Deputy Attorney General, led the State to subsequently file a motion at the Supreme Court to fight the injunction which he succeeded.
Appearing before the Appointments Committee today, [Friday], the Attorney General nominee who was answering a question if his action left the residents disenfranchised rather said:
“It will be unfair for any person to say that Ied the efforts for the people of Hohoe to be disenfranchised. If anything at all, the opposite is the case. I endured the preservation of the right of the people of Hohoe to vote. By dint of CI 128, the people of SALL have been placed in the Buem constituency and that is where they ought to vote, not the Hohoe constituency”.
The EC has said that it will initiate processes leading to the creation of a new constituency in the Guan district when the 8th Parliament commences.
This was after the Commission could not hold elections for registered voters in the Guan District to elect a Member of Parliament due to the absence of a constituency.
In the Supreme Court’s ruling on the matter, the apex Court declared as null and void, the Ho High Court’s interim orders of an injunction against the Electoral Commission from gazetting John Peter Amewu as Member of Parliament-elect for Hohoe; and for Mr. Amewu from parading himself as having been elected Member of Parliament.
