NGO advocates for chiefs to deal with lower governance

Wa, June, 21, GNA - The Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has suggested to the government to give mandate to chiefs to deal with lower governance. He said central governance was failing to get down well with the rural people as they cherish the chiefs more than the district, municipal and metropolitan chief executives.

Mr. Bernard Guri, Executive Director of CIKOD, said the relevance of chiefs in governance and development in Ghana was tremendous and should be given attention and recognition that it deserved. "There are those who think the chieftaincy institution is anachronistic and is only useful as an artefact. There are also those who see chiefs as a great potential for filling the vacuum that is left by government for reaching out to the rural sector in both governance and development interventions." Mr. Guri was addressing members of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs at a workshop on: "The future of the Chieftaincy Institution in Ghana" held in Wa. It was on the theme: "Chiefly Peer Review Mechanism". He said chiefs remained relevant and more legitimate in the eyes of the majority of Ghanaians.

He said a study carried out by CIKOD and the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Brong-Ahafo Region had revealed that 96 per cent of the people think that traditional authority was still relevant 50 years after independence while 67 per cent think traditional authorities are important for their lives compared to 57 per cent for district chief executives. "The revealing statistics indicate the degree of responsibility that chiefs have to the people of this country not withstanding what some politicians or urban elite may think. I believe a lot of chiefs are probably not aware of these high expectations of Ghanaians", Mr. Guri said.

Mr. Guri said even though there was evidence of the relevance of traditional authority in the governance of the country, governments are always reluctant to fully integrate them into local government systems for three reasons. He said governments had entertained the fear that if the authority of traditional authority was officially recognised, there would be a split in allegiance, especially at the lower levels where chiefs are more prominent.

"Official integration of traditional authority in governance and the development process would probably mean allocating public funds to chiefs for their work. However, out of reverence for chieftaincy institution, it will be difficult to scrutinize them as is required by law for accountability for the use of such public funds", Guri said. He mentioned the lack of clear mechanisms for accountability by chiefs to their people as some of the fears that are worrying governments. He said the fears are realistic ones that needed to be addressed in an open and frank way if the country was to take maximum advantage of the chieftaincy institution for development. "We must bear in mind that the chieftaincy institution is a peculiar one in that it is based on traditional values that are understood and appreciated by ordinary rural people, yet we want to integrate it into a formal governance system that is based on western principles, best understood only by the educated and urban elite", Mr. Guri said.

Mr. Guri called on the government to resource chiefs adequately and to allow them to take complete charge of governance at the lower levels where they are better equipped to deal with their people while government agencies take charge of governance at the higher levels. He appealed to chiefs to agree on a culturally sensitive framework for a mutual chiefly peer review mechanism in the region where chiefs from the three regions could assess each other's leadership with regard to accountability to their people through sharing and learning from each other's experiences. The workshop was to create the opportunity for chiefs to reflect on the issue of accountability and transparency from the traditional point of view but in the context of contemporary global reality. The CIKOD and the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs organised the forum for its members with sponsorship from konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.