After five hours of debate the National Assembly last night passed the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Bill 2018 with the support of both sides of the house.
The Government side of the house however did not offer support to further amendments brought by Opposition Parliamenta-rian Zulfikar Mustapha to grant strict time delimitations to provisions included in several clauses related to elections of chairpersons.
Though they agreed with the proposed amendments, the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic however took the time allocated for debate to air grievances about how the Local Government System has been managed over the last two years. The main issue of contention was a recent order by Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan which removed 16 constituencies from 14 Local Government Areas (LGAs) and created nine new LGAs.