Reform colonial tendencies - Chiefs told

Accra, Feb.27, GNA - Professor Adzei Bekoe, Chairman, Council of State on Tuesday called on chiefs to reform their colonial tendencies and take a proactive posture to address the developmental needs of their people rather than lording it over them.

Ghana, he said, was still essentially a rural country with majority of the people believing in traditional values and systems of which chieftaincy was a focal point.

Delivering the keynote address at a workshop on 50 years of Chieftaincy and Governance in Ghana on the theme; "Ghana at 50: Resolving the Duality in Governance - The Future of the Chieftaincy Institution", Prof Bekoe noted that it would be unwise to neglect the potential source of mobilization.

It was organised by the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) in collaboration with the National House of Chiefs and sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Prof Bekoe said chiefs play legislative, executive, judicial and spiritual functions under the traditional system, which had proved to be a very important source of mobilisation of physical, human and financial resources for local development.

The role of the traditional ruler in the local government system, he said, was quite limited because the law forbade traditional rulers from playing active party politics, thus limiting their participation in local government elections.

A pre-election study by the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana found out that 43 percent of respondents want to have their traditional authorities participate in local governance, 56 percent indicated that chiefs played active role in educating voters and created the needed awareness among other things.

Under the 1992 constitution and the local government Act 462, Prof Bekoe indicated that there was no provision for the automatic membership of chiefs on district assemblies.

At the international level, he said, attempts were made through several models to provide traditional authorities with necessary resources and capacity to enable them support and lead the processes for community development.

He commended the World Bank, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Development (CIKOD) and the Centre for Development Studies of the University for Development Studies for supporting the chieftaincy institution in various capacities. The University, he said, had developed a curriculum for a three-modular training programme for traditional authorities to enhance their role in local governance.

He paid tribute to Nana Kobina Nketia IV, an illustrious chief who contributed heroically to Ghana's independence struggle, academia, Pan-Africanism and the Diaspora and for performing the role of building a bridge between Europe and Africa.

He recommended a close working relationship between the traditional authorities and the district assemblies for the improvement of the livelihood of the people in the rural area.

Prof. Bekoe called for the review of the policy framework for Ghana's decentralisation to remove those ambiguities that made it difficult for traditional authorities to be mainstreamed into the formal local governance system.