ASSEMBLIES URGED TO INVOLVE CHIEFS IN PROJECT PLANNING (PAGE 32)

THE Minister for Chieftaincy and Culture, Mr Sampson Kwaku Boafo, has urged metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to regard traditional rulers as their major stakeholders in their development process and actively involve them in areas of planning and implementation of projects.
He said traditional rulers should not be relegated to perform only ceremonial functions, noting that some district assembly officials thought that the assemblies had created sufficient opportunities for traditional authorities to participate in their programmes through community forums and frequent consultations, adding that there was the need to create acceptable collaborative functions between the assemblies and the traditional authorities.
Mr Boafo made the appeal in a speech read on his behalf at a validation workshop on the study, “The Role of Traditional Authorities In Local Governance”, in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The study was conducted in the Brong Ahafo and Central regions, and among high-profile chiefs who attended the workshop were the President of the Brong Ahafo Regional House of Chiefs, Okatakyie Agyeman Kudom VI, who is also the Omanhene of the Nkoranza Traditional Area; Nana Kobina Nketsia, the Omanhene of the Esikado Traditional Area, and Agyewodin Adu-Gyamfi Ampem, the Omanhene of the Acherensua Traditional Area
The workshop was a collaborative effort between the German Development Co-operation (GTZ) and the Decentralisation Secretariat of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment.
The study was conducted by the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development, in collaboration with the Centre for Development Studies of the University of Cape Coast.
“Nananom are major stakeholders in our governance process at all levels. They successfully partnered the colonial administrators to effectively govern this country and they played a significant role in mobilising their communities to fight for self government,” he noted.
He said it was in that respect that strategies needed to be formulated to facilitate the integration of traditional authorities and strengthen their roles to effectively partner the government in the development of the nation.
Mr Boafo emphasised that in view of the fact that Ghana was still essentially a rural country, with majority of the people believing in traditional values and systems, the people continued to owe some form of allegiance to traditional authorities and that, therefore, made the role of chiefs unique in the governance process.
He indicated that although the ministry and the various houses of chiefs were the institutions charged with the responsibility of integrating traditional knowledge into national policy, there were no legal mechanisms for interaction with other government institutions, except what he described as “token” representation on the Council of State, the regional co-ordinating councils and some state commissions, pointing out that an acceptable legal framework needed to be formulated in that regard.
The minister announced that the National House of Chiefs and the Law Reform Commission, with support from the GTZ, was conducting research on the codification of customary law relating to lands and families in Ghana and said it was expected that the outcome of the study would put an end to the various chieftaincy conflicts that arose out of land issues.
The Programme Manager of the GTZ and Support for Development Reform, Mr Nikolas Beckmann, observed that owing to the recognition of the institution of chieftaincy in the Constitution, the integration of indigenous governance cultures and practices into the modern governance system was a constitutional obligation.
Presenting a report on the findings of the study, Dr Bernard Y. Guri noted that the establishment of new decentralised local government systems had brought into sharp focus the problems associated with a dual governance system, comprising state institutions that dealt with the general development of communities and a traditional system which was constitutionally limited to matters of traditional rule and customary law but which was, in actual fact, very much present in the development arena.