Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has proposed an amendment to the Chieftaincy Act to empower chiefs to help in the governance of the country so that they could also receive stipends from the state.
Dr Bawumia made the call when he addressed members of the Ashanti Regional House of Chiefs during his three-day working visit to the region.
He said under the current Chieftaincy Act 2008 (Act 759), chiefs were powerless and could not even summon people to appear before them.
He admitted that governments had not involved chiefs enough in the governance of the country so he is ready to change it. The vice president said,
“and I want to change that because as it is right now, the chiefs are powerless in many areas.”
“They cannot even summon people who would appear before them, so we need to change it and amend section 63(d) of the Chieftaincy Act to empower chiefs to help the government govern this country,” he proposed.
Section 63 of the Chieftaincy Act, 2008 (Act 759) deals with offences in connection with chiefs and sub-section (d) states that a person who “deliberately refuses to honour a call from a chief to attend to an issue commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than two hundred penalty units or a term of imprisonment of not more than three months or both and in the case of a continuing offence to a further fine of not more than twenty-five penalty units for each day on which the offence continues.”
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said it is important to involve the chiefs in the management of the natural resources and allow them to have an equity stake in the exploration of the resources.
He believed that if they had a stake in the minerals, they would not allow the galamsey to destroy the land and water resources but would be interested in their management.
“Nananom, we want to make sure that we can regulate the small-scale miners, make sure that the chiefs are part of the district mining committees that can give the licenses to the small-scale miners,” he said.
