Minister directs arrest of foot-soldiers

Accra, Jun 5, GNA - Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, has directed personnel of the security agencies to arrest and arraign for court, any foot-soldier or political party activists whose actions violate the laws of the land. The Deputy Minister said such violations sometimes led to inter-party and/or intra-party conflicts whose management took a huge chunk of government's resources that could otherwise be used for development projects.

Mr Afriyie-Ankrah gave the directive when presenting a paper on "Management and Resolution of Conflicts" at a Conflict and Crisis Management Course (CCMC) for personnel of security agencies at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC) at Teshie in Accra.

His topic was "Local Government: The Reality of Funding and the Management/Resolution of Crisis at the District Level". The CCMC, a three-week course, is a collaboration between GAFCSC and Cranfield University of the United Kingdom.

It is being attended by 90 participants, comprising 39 GAFCSC students and 51 external participants from various institutions, including Uniformed and Emergency Services. The course aims at providing participants with a clear understanding of conflict and internal crisis management to enable them to work more effectively, efficiently and cohesively. Mr Afriyie-Ankrah urged the security agencies to effect the arrests, adding that no party executive would come to the aid of, or shield an activist who misbehaved himself or herself. "That is why I have been advising them to comport themselves even when they have genuine concerns because there are structures and procedures as to how to address such concerns" he said. Mr Afriyie-Ankrah said already there was a considerable number of conflicts in the country, all of which constituted a burden on government and the local authorities, adding government could not afford to see the emergence of new conflict zones. He called for the establishment of an emergency support fund for crisis and conflict management because such situations occurred unexpectedly. He also appealed to international organisations for continuous support in the resolution of local conflicts. "This would ensure that resources for the development of local communities are not spent on conflict resolution to the detriment of building schools, health facilities and other social infrastructure," he said.

The Deputy Minister added that some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), especially those created between 2004 and 2005, would undergo a re-alignment after the 2010 census to ensure effective administration and prudent application of resources for the benefit of the people. "This means some of the MMDAs will either be collapsed or merged with others" he said.

He said government would ask the Electoral Commission (EC) to use the results of the 2010 census in addition to its (EC) guidelines on creating new MMDAs to do the re-alignment exercise. He said this was to address the current situation where most newly created MMDAs were spending most of their Common Fund on building residential and office complex for staff, to the detriment of development projects. Dr Vladimir Antwi Danso, Fellow of the Legon Centre for International Affairs (LECIA), called on government to constantly engage the academia to manage as well as solve local conflicts. He said the academia had been doing critical researches on the phenomenon.

Participants called for the provision of adequate resources to the security agencies to enable them to effectively manage crisis and conflict situations. They said the delay in releasing funds for such operations demoralised security personnel and often had serious consequences on conflict resolution.