Sheikh I.C. Quaye, Greater Accra Regional Minister has called for the establishment of a Royal College for Chiefs where they would learn and deliberate effectively on local governance issues.

He said the establishment of such an institution had become necessary because chiefs had for a long time been excluded from governance issues with the excuse that, “traditional rulers should not engage in active partisan politics”.

Governance, he said, “is politics and if you stay away from politics then you are abandoning your constitutional right to engage in participatory democracy and local governance,” Sheikh Quaye told some representatives of the Ga Traditional Council and chiefs within the Greater Accra Region at a regional stakeholders seminar.

The regional stakeholders’ seminar was on the theme, “The Interface between Traditional Authorities and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies”.

It aims at fashioning out a strategy to give chiefs and queen mothers the opportunity to play a more active role in district administration.

Attending the seminar were five District Chief Executives from the Region namely the Ga East, Ga West, Dangbe East, Dangbe West and Tema Municipal Assemblies.

Sheikh I.C Quaye said because of the erroneous impression by some chiefs about their engagement in politics, “They decide to sit on the fence unconcerned, most out of fear…I would support all efforts towards the establishment of the royal college because training and education in the relevant governance and administrative skills is a necessary condition for effective participation of our traditional rulers in our local government system.”

He said it was for security reasons to enable chiefs’ foster greater peace and unity within their communities that governments prohibited traditional rulers from active partisan politics but not politics in totality, because governance is politics.

Source: The Accra Daily Mail