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Threshold Act sailing trouble water |
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Written by Julius Kanubah
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Saturday, 13 September 2008 |
The controversial draft Population Threshold Act has for the second time suffered a setback in the House of Representatives.
The passage of the proposed Act has finally being deferred to the next sitting of the Legislature in January 2009.
The draft threshold Act resurfaced in the House after a compromise to maintain the current seats of lowly populated counties.
The threshold Act seeks to increase the population of each electoral constituency from twenty thousand to forty-five thousand.
The National Elections Commission is seeking the passage of the Act to avoid not more than a hundred-constituency in Liberia.
However, counties with lower population mostly from southeastern-Liberia are rejecting the proposed forty-five thousand-threshold.
The House Friday endorsed the reconsideration motion for the suspension of the threshold debate filed by Maryland Representative Bhofar Chambers.
Meanwhile, eight Representatives of Montserrado County Friday staged a walkout in protest to the voting process leading to the deferral of the threshold Act.
The Montserrado lawmakers including Edwin Snowe, Rufus Neufville and Kuku Dorbor complained they were not given the chance to cast their votes.
The other lawmakers are Edward Forh, Dave Kumeh, Alomiza Barr, Thomas Fallah and Moses Tandapolie
One of the angry lawmakers Edward Forh told Star Radio, Speaker Alex Tyler denied them participation in the process.
However, Speaker Tyler said the walkout by the Montserrado lawmakers was a normal Legislative practice.
Confusion erupted in the House when the results from the votes to suspend the debate into the Threshold Act were announced.
Meanwhile, the House has extended its session by one week to discuss pressing national issues.
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