The Assembly Members of the Savelugu Municipal in the Northern Region have elected Hon Munkaila Alhassan Yakubu, as the Presiding Member of the Assembly.

The Assembly has been running for the past one year without a presiding member.

Hon Munkaila, an assemblyman for the Pong Tamale Zongo Electoral Area obtained 36 votes of the 37 total votes cast representing 92.3 percent.

His main contender, Hon Sofo Abdul Rahaman stepped down to allow Hon. Munkaila to become the new Presiding Member after both could not get two-third of the majority votes in the first round of voting. Hon Sofo secured 15 votes whiles Hon Munkaila obtained 22 votes out of the 37 votes cast representing less than two-third.

After a twenty minutes deliberation among Assembly members, Hon Sofo rescind his decision to contest thus made Hon Munkaila to go unopposed and subsequently overwhelmingly endorsed by the Assembly members.

The elections was supervised by the Municipal Presiding Officer of the Electoral Commission (EC).

His Lordship Anthony Aduku, a District Magistrate, administrated the oaths of office, allegiance and secrecy to Hon Munkaila Alhassan Yakubu.

In his acceptance speech, the newly elect Presiding Member thanked members of the Assembly for the confidence reposed in him.

He said, the main challenge of the municipality is internal revenue generation and sanitation and therefore task members of the Assembly to work hand in hand to chalk successes in these areas.

Hon Munkaila said, there is the need for citizens of the Municipality to be educated on the relevance of tax and property rates payments, adding that, there is the need to also to fight against the abuse of Tramadol among the youth in the Municipality.

The Presiding Member also pleaded to the Volta River Authority (VRA) in the Savelugu Municipality to as a matter of urgency resolve the electricity problems in the Municipality.

Hon Munkaila appealed to the MCE to visit each electoral area in order to see their problems and as well as use that as an opportunity to educate them on the relevance of paying their taxes and property rates.

The MCE for Savelugu, Hon Hajia Ayishetu Seidu congratulated Hon Munkaila Yakubu Alhassan on his victory and urged him to be honest and hardworking towards the development of the Savelugu municipality.

The MCE commended Hon Sofo Abdul Rahaman for the show of maturity and for agreeing to step down in the interest of the Assembly.

Hon Hajia Ayishetu “It is gratifying that we have been able to elect a Presiding Member today to lead this august house. We will now be able to carry out fully our mandate as an Assembly to deliberate and take decisions aimed at bringing development to the Municipality to improve the lives of our people”.

The Savelugu MCE noted that, in spite of the absence of a Presiding Member, the assembly have chalked success in its mandate to bring development to the door step of the people.