The Central Regional Minister, Justina Marigold Assan was captured appealing to assembly members of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly to vote to confirm the MCE nominee, Ernest Arthur.
Kneeling before the assembly members, the Regional Minister pleaded on behalf of the MCE nominee and implored the assembly members to give him the nod.
“I appealed to you the last time we met to vote for the MCE nominee, but you declined. Today, we have another opportunity to confirm the President’s MCE nominee for Cape Coast. If it doesn’t go well, we will all be affected, especially me.”
“So I will plead with you to give him the nod, bearing in mind the development of the metropolis. If I need to kneel down before you, I will so that honourable members will consider and confirm the President’s MCE nominee. If anyone has issues with the MCE nominee, please do forgive him and vote for him,” she said.
The voting, which was scheduled to begin at 4:00 pm Wednesday, 6th October 2021, started at 5:56 pm.
Just after 40 minutes into the programme, organizers called for a break of about thirty minutes, and that lasted for over an hour.
There were several meetings to convince the assembly members to give the former MCE the nod.
The Minister and the MCE nominee together with the MP for Cape Coast South, George Kweku Ricketts Hagan and other government officials held a crunch meeting to see how best to convince the assembly members.
Ernest Arthur was however rejected for the second time, despite the Central Regional Minister’s appeal for votes to get him confirmed.
The re-nominated MCE failed to meet the two-thirds majority in the second vote held on Wednesday.
Mr. Arthur polled 40 ‘YES’ votes out of 65 Assembly members who took part in the confirmation process.
Despite losing out, the Presiding Member of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly, Nana Awuku, ordered another round of voting, which was rejected by the assembly members.