The Elections Coordinating Committee through the Center for Media Studies and Peace building (CEMESP) with support from USAID through the Liberia Accountability and Voice Initiative ( LAVI), has ended a one day Legislative Engagement meeting in Cestos City River Cess County.
Giving the overview of the Engagement meeting in Cestos city, CEMESP Executive Director Mr. Malcolm Joseph said the group through Nation wide consultations solicited the views of Citizens in the 15 Counties which resulted into the formulation of 17 Propositions submitted to the Legislature for approval on the ongoing electoral reforms process.
He however said out of the 17 Propositions submitted, the Legislature approved 4 thus leaving 13 of them still at the Legislature, therefore it was necessary to bring the Legislators and Citizens face to face to discuss how best they can work together for approval of the remaining ones as those were the views of Citizens expressed during the Consultations.
Rep. Rosanna Schaack, District #1 River Cess County and co-Chair of the Legislative Caucus only lawmaker present at the forum lauded ECC and partners for the exercise and assured Citizens that their views will be taken into serious consideration.
Rep.Schaack said as Member of the House’s Committee on Elections, she worked with her colleagues in approving the four (4) Propositions and mentioned that it requires several engagements to consider the balance 13 Propositions as there were issues put forth by the Citizens.
Representative Rosanna Schaack who is the current chair of the Women Legislative Caucus of Liberia said some of the Propositions are issues of hot spot especially the call for certain number or percentage of political parties candidates for elected positions must be gender balanced as the Current Legislature is dominated by male with 9 out of 73 Members of the House of Representative been Females while the Senate of 30 Members having just a Woman.
The forum which was held at the Cestos City Hall on Saturday January 25, 2020 brought together Cross-section of Citizens.
Prominent among those in attendance include Superintendent J. Bismark Karbiah, Cestos City Mayor Vickie N.Beah and former Member of the National Transitional Legislative Assembly and Current Statutory District Superintendent of Yarnee, Dorr Henry Sobeor.
Though there was no official communication from the offices of the three (3)remaining Members of the River Cess Legislative Caucus, it is believed that their absence might have been due to their engagements.
